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2023

  

The Last Blocks of Wood
(Installed on 2023/12/09. No.372)

I have kept taking out three 10-litter garbage bags of wooden blocks and the work has almost come to the last one to be done tomorrow morning. Hurrah!!
20231209trimmed.jpg

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Dredging 2023 Fall
(Installed on 2023/10/30. No.371)

I have finished the last of my three giggest jobs in fall. Algae and weeds were far less this time and my work was easier. Was it because it was too hot during summer. It has been reported that less food for bears such as acorns in the mountains this year and many bears coming down into the areas where people live looking for food. Climate variability?!.
2023fall dredging.jpg

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Cutting The Tree I Felled Into Smaller Blocks
(Installed on 2023/10/24. No.370)

I cut the trees I felled into smaller blocks in order for them to be carried away by garbage collection trucks. We can take out less than three bags at a time and each one must be less than 6 kgs. It takes very long time to finish taking out all of them!
The bigger blocks in the photo go to a neighbor's garden.
trees felled cut smaller.jpg

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Cutting The Last Tree
(Installed on 2023/10/21. No.369)

I cut the last tree which was the tallest and the biggest of the three trees we had. It took me two days. I cut the boughs on the first day and the trunk today. Before cutting I patted the trunk and thanked for the wonderful shades it had provided us with.
cutting top.jpg

cutting almost done.jpg

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I Repaired The Hot Water Leak.
(Installed on 2023/10/19. No.368)

A leak occured on the hot water pipe. A small hole caused by corrosion had grown(1st photo). I tried to stop up the hole but the water remained inside the pipe disturbed it. Consequently I replaced the parts which consisted of the junction of hot water supply after vulves from the gas boiler and from the solar heater(2nd photo). The repair took me three days.
leak hole.jpg

leak hole pipe unit repaired.jpg

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I Cut The Trees
(Installed on 2023/10/15. No.367)

I cut and lowered the persimmon tree and the kurogane holly using the jinxed chain saw. That is, my deceased father heavily injured himself on the left arm while using it. So it's jinxed.
The place was narrow and I cut each tree little by little from the top pulling the cutting block each time with a piece of rope to lead it to fall in plade at the tree foot. The first block fell on to the stepladder and broke one of the lowest steps. It hit my leg too and caused big scratches. I thought it broke the jinx.
One last bigger tree is left to cut. It seems I had better not finish the work in a single day.
cutting kurogane holly.jpg

kaki and kurogane holly cut.jpg

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Pruning The Trees 2023
(Installed on 2023/10/11. No.366)

I have finished pruning the trees. Now only one big job remaining in the fall is dredging the waterway but I'm going to fell three bigger trees too next week, which I resolved considering my rapidly declining physical strength.
pruning 2023 fall.jpg

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Grave Hedge Pruning 2023 Fall
(Installed on 2023/10/04. No.365)

We had unusually long and hot summer but this new week started with cooler temperature at last. The season I could work outside started. To begin with I pruned the grave hedge. Sadly one big tree at the entrace died recently.
grave hedge trimmed 20231003.jpg

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Tomohiro's Grape
(Installed on 2023/07/20. No.364)

Tomohiro's grapes grew and the new vines are growing longer.
20230624grave visited.jpg

20230624after bbq.jpg

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Tomohiro's Classmates Visited His Grave
(Installed on 2023/06/27. No.363)

Tomohiro's classmates, most of them with their family, visited his grave as June was his birth month. It was after three years since we had our last such a big reunion when we didn't receive our baptism of Covit 19.
20230624grave visited.jpg

I forgot to take a shot during the climax of bbq and the second photo looks so placid.
20230624after bbq.jpg

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Thank You For The Flowers
(Installed on 2023/06/16. No.362)

We found beautiful flowers offered to the tomb. June 16th is the 37th birthday of our late son Tomohiro. They are familiar flowers, supposedly offered by the same regular person. Thank you for offering flowers regularly.
flowers offered 20230616.jpg

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A New Power Switch On The Grip
(Installed on 2023/06/15. No.361)

I installed a new power switch on the grip of the vacuum cleaner the hose of which I improved lately. The cleaner became more easily operationable with a single hand. Please visit here for details.
14_new grip sw.jpg

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Sofa Table
(Installed on 2023/05/25. No.360)

I made a sofa table which you can use while you're sitting deep on a sofa. Please visit here for details.
0_sofa table.jpg

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Tomohiro's Grape
(Installed on 2023/05/11. No.359)

Tomohiro's grape on the new trellis bore new fruit. They look to become gorgeous bunches.
0_panasonic dl-eg10.jpg

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Taking A Countermeasure Against The Washing Seats Trouble -II-
(Installed on 2023/05/03. No.358)

I uploaded 'Repairing Panasonic Washing Seats'on Dec.19, 2022. Unfortunately the same trouble started again a few months later. I repeated the cleaning of the connectors and the washing function revived but only for a few weeks.
0_panasonic dl-eg10.jpg
Considering the symptom I assumed the trigger power, with which to start the electronic sequences that finally move the washing mechanism, is bad. As a measure I pressed the button a little stronger. Bingo! The washer worked. The washing mechanism has never failed since I had started pressing it stronger.
My conclusion is that the switch circuit is not designed to feed good enough pulse years later when the seat got older.

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Repairing A Honda Little Cub & Making It Batteryless
(Installed on 2023/04/26. No.357)

I repaired the 20-year old motorbike and gave it a modification. Please visit here for details.
1_new cdi unit.jpg

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Bath Tub Lids
(Installed on 2023/04/06. No.356)

The old lids which my father had made and left to us for the old bath tub are still usable but they are a little too small. So I made a new set of lids. Please visit here for details.
5_finished.jpg

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Improving A Cleaner Hose
(Installed on 2023/04/04. No.355)

My favorite cleaner which I had repeatedly repaired finally died never to revive. So I bought a new one, a model you could almost buy two for 10000yen.
8_finished.jpg
However, it had a disappointing character. The switch bottons installed at the hose end at the handle often dodges you turnning away with the hose. So I fixed the hose end at the handle and installed a slide ring contacts on the other end. Please visit here for details.

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Sakura 2023
(Installed on 2023/03/26. No.354)

Sakura(Cherry blossoms) started to bloom earlier than usual this year all over Japan.
sakura2023.jpg
On our way back home from our daughter's home in Gifu we picked up a longer way to watch sakura. It was a day of a sprinkle of rain and we saw no other people at the site. We could monopolize beautiful sakura which were almost at their best this early.

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Repair Of A Revex Timer
(Installed on 2023/03/21. No.353)

The programmable timer for the ventilating fan we had used for many years stopped functioning. I opened it to see if I could repair it. The photo below shows its outlook and inside.
revex timer inside_outside.jpg

The photo below shows the display(back) and the board behind the upper cover. Parts and components were all normal. The trouble had been caused by mal electric contact of electrodes. I cleaned all the electrodes that are marked with red circles in the photo plus the surfaces of the rubber buttons with deoxidizer. The timer revived! timer display and c_board.jpg

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A Trestle For A PC
(Installed on 2023/03/03. No.352)

I made a kind of trestle for a tablet pc to be used on the music stand of my piano. It enables the pc to be tilted a few degrees more and help avert the reflection of light from the window behind away from my eyes.
pc on the trestle.jpg

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Thank You For The Beautiful Flowers
(Installed on 2023/02/20. No.351)

Feb.19 was the seventh aniversary of Tomohiro's death. We found beautiful flowers offered to the grave by someone. Sweet peas among the bunches were making them familiar to me. I imagined they were offered by someone who had offered similar bunches before too. Thank you for the visit and the beautiful flowers.
flowers offered 20230220.jpg

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Taking Measures To Meet The Cognitive Impairment Screening Test
(Installed on 2023/02/18. No.350)

I took the cognitive test for the renewal of my driver's license in June. In the test four different groups of illustrations of pattern C were projected on the screen, each of which consisted of four illustrations like the one as shown below. To each illustration was given the least necessary explanation by the officer in charge.
patternAs.jpg
After the projections were over, we were told to mark the numbers the officer told us among the numbers full of one page. After this memory disturbance we wrote down what we saw on the screen, first without hints, then with hints.
I had learned three years ago that illutrations were prepared tactically that they didn't suit for memorization as they were. So I made a list of illustraions by letters as shown below. table of items_e.jpg
You have to keep the order of the items in memorization in order to let them match with the particular pattern to which they belongs. You can only memorize items by each hint. The list helped me a lot to memorize them much quicker and easier.

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Additional Repare Of A Solar Water Heater
(Installed on 2023/02/15. No.349)

I made additional repairs on the solar water heater. My report on Jan. 5 was wrong. The water spilling from the relief valve was normal. It was caused by the water pressure which was too high. It was caused by the broken pressure reducer. I replaced it with a new one together with the gate valve. The system resumed its original whole function. Please visit here for details.
pressure reducer+stop valve.jpg
I took the photos below(left:pressure reducer, right:gate valve) just after I took them off. In the manual of the reducer was written that its filter needs cleaning two times a year. Why couldn't I imagine it had needed such care? I regret. inside of old valves.jpg

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Fixing A Shutter Roller
(Installed on 2023/02/09. No.348)

I replaced a broken roller of a shutter door with a new one which I couldn't find at nearby diy shops. I searched over the net shops and luckily found an identical one. The price was very reasonable. I could insert it easily by hand, not a tool needed.
wheels changed.jpg

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Additional Fixing Of The Ribbon Cable In The Dehumidifier
(Installed on 2023/02/07. No.347)

I fixed the mal contacts of the ribbon cable in the dehumidifier. Please visit here for details.
ribbon cable.jpg

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Repairing A Solar Water Heater
(Installed on 2023/02/05. No.346)

I have the system installed in 1982, that is, it's been working for 40 years, with many maintenance work though. On sunny days it makes 40-degree C water full of our bathtub even in midwinter. This time I replaced the relief valve of 95KPa on top of the tank with a new one. The former had been spouting water unusually.
relief valve adjusting.jpg
However, the spit didn't stop. I hurriedly ordered a new one of 120KPa. But I wasn't sure if it's a right one. After lunch I opened an old broken one and knew the spring that decides the relief pressure can be easily adjusted by turning the spring stopper(the red arrowed button-like metal in the photo above) inside the relief lever holder. By turning it clockwise about 480 degrees the spit stopped. The photo below shows the inside mechanism. relief valve inside.jpg

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Additional Improvement of Wi-Fi Receiving
(Installed on 2023/01/27. No.345)

The wi-fi receiving of my wife's iPhone 12 had been improved since Dec. 19 after I installed the induction chip behind the phone.
However, the improvement wasn't enough for receiving movies. In order to improve the situation I installed a pair of shorter induction chips as shown in the photo. I made them shorter as I judged they are like microstrip antennas, the wavelength shortening coefficient of which I learned is very high.
It worked! The indicator shows it. The receiving of movies became stable. induction chip n indicator2.jpg

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Repairing An LED Light
(Installed on 2023/01/22. No.344)

A three-mode LED light had started not to work normally. I replaced the tact switch (the lower one in the green circle) with a new one I owned. The light revived. Lucky I was that the cause wasn't with the control IC.
led light tact sw closeup.jpg

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One Touch Ling Light Holder
(Installed on 2023/01/12. No.343)

I made an easy ling light holder using a piece of flat steel angle. The ling light equiped with this holder can be used only thrusting it under the lap top above the working desk. I came to this idea after trying some inconvenient ways. The first trial photo was of the dried persimmons just harvested.
one touch ling light.jpg

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Repairing A Side Table
(Installed on 2023/01/08. No.342)

Someone heedlessly stepped on a side table which I assembled a long time ago. The top board broke and I repaired it. Please visit here for details.
1_bedside table broken.jpg

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