It's A Mystery

Saturday we decided to clean the vent in the washing machine which meant finding something the right height and strength to hold it when we pulled it out.  That sucker is heavy.  The footstool to our Flexsteel reclining chair was perfect.  In order to not scratch it, we put the kitchen sink lid on top of that.  
We turned off the water and unplugged the unit. First we had to remove the front of the drip pan, then slide it out resting it on our holder-upper.  We had about 2 inches clearance on either side of the W/D and about 1/2 inch within the drip pan to shimmy it out.  Tiny fingers were needed which I have, but strong fingers were needed too, which is why Gary and I are such a good team.  Inch by inch we wiggled it out so that we could take a peak behind.  Oh, there was a small black Mag-Lite back there!  Wonder who lost that?

We removed the silver vent hose, vaccuumed it out, vaccuumed out the back of the unit at the vent opening, and replaced vent hose and the hose clamp.  We checked the black hoses and wires for wear and leaks (none) and got our 'grabber' to reach that flashlight. 

We slid the unit back into it's hole and here's me replacing the drip pan front.  I threw in a load of wash to check it and hurray, it worked great!

Gary checked over that flashlight and there was an 'M' on the end of it.  Ha - it was his that he had dropped back there a looooong time ago. 

While we were working on this project, I was baking some banana bread.  Nothing like the aroma of baking sweetbreads.  Wish we could share it with you!

Time for a little R&R.

Sunday we had another chore to do.  Last fall I had noticed some little while plastic filings at the corner of our pegboard bay.  This pegboard protects our water tanks and is easy to remove.  I wanted to find out what that stuff was.  Gary got his screwdriver and removed the panel.  This is what we saw much to our horror:

All of that white stuff was chewed up plastic.  Gary found the head of a giant ant with huge pincers, but we searched and searched and couldn't find what it was that was chewed on.  My guess is that whatever it was, it was completely chewed to the last bite.    It's scary to think that something that should be there is not.  But everything has worked fine for two years (except our engine).  Any ideas???

Well, we vacuumed it all up, replaced the pegboard and prayed a little that we messed with something we shouldn't have...

Gary had an eye Dr. appointment on Monday - everything is healing slowly and his eyelashes and eyebrows are growing back!  We worked on Tuesday, took the Jeep in to get the tires looked at again on Wednesday.  She was vibrating badly at 55 mph on the highway, and it turned out she had lost a weight on one wheel.  They took her out for a test drive, and all was well. 

Another exciting week with a nice view:

Thanks for checking up on us!