I arrived at the lake very early this morning about 2:30am. After lighting the fire and turning on the heat and watching Edmonton beat Calgary, I went to bed in a very very cold bed. Lying very still, I warmed up a small section and drifted of to sleep. In the morning it’s a cloudy day with light intermittent rain. No high speed Internet, but the old stand by, dial-up, and no that’s not the crisis.
The crisis is much more serious, given that it’s a cool morning that just begs you to get together with a steaming cup of coffee and a book. Yesterday I bought some fresh Starbucks beans for just such a purpose to enjoy this morning in the ritualistic early morning coffees at the lake. As I prepare to grind the beans for that perfect cup, I’m greeted with a low, quite “mmmm” from the coffee bean grinder. Not the enthusiastic wiring of the blades the chopping and grinding of the beans and the “awful” noise that it normally produces. The “awful” noise that our son’s hated so much when they were trying to sleep in that they bought us a different, more gentler, kinder, coffee bean grinder to replace the one we had at home, which now lives at the lake.
That’s right, the crisis is that the coffee bean grinder is broken!
What to do! Well, being resourceful and having a well equipped shop, I’m at the bench taking the thing apart to get it operational. After all this is a major issues! Stores are closed, there is no ground coffee in the cottage, it’s do or die!. It turns out that coffee dust and moisture has penetrated the seal and rusted the armature shaft of the motor to the top bearing. In other words, it’s stuck. Well, some penetrating oil should help out. Every time I use penetrating oil I remember Ken Main. Ken was a friend who owned Furby Motors and gave me a summer job. He also was a sailing buddy on Lake Brerton. When ever things were “stuck” around Furby, Ken would say “Just put some squirrel piss on it”, referring to the very thin nature of penetrating oil. That was over 30 years ago, and I still think fondly of Ken every time I use penetrating oil.
Well, that didn’t fix things fast enough. It’s still on the bench soaking and still stuck. I need my coffee. I briefly think of smashing the beans with a hammer, but settle for using the blender. The grind is a little course but it does the job.
Ahhhh, the black elixir of coffee has been restored to the cottage experience. All is right again. Crisis averted.
