Meet the New Upstairs Maid

A few months ago, I bought a Roomba. The house I now live in has a built-in vacuum system, which is impressive, but there are problems with it. First of all, I am lazy, and the central system will not run by itself. Second, the system has a 30-foot hose which is not much fun to carry upstairs and from room to room. It’s actually easier to carry a vacuum cleaner, now that I think about it.

The big advantage of a built-in vacuum system is not convenience. Not unless you have several expensive hoses so you can leave one in every room. The advantage is cleanliness. A central vacuum does not expel dust into the air like a regular vacuum. Everything it takes in goes out of the house and into the remote canister. That’s nice, because nothing gets blown back into the air, and you never have to buy bags.

The Roomba is great, with certain reservations. It runs every day, and it usually gets stuck at least once. It thinks area rugs with patterns are “cliffs.” It sends me messages saying it’s trapped on a cliff and makes me go pick it up. I’m positive it’s female. So needy. It even sends me messages when I’m out of town. I don’t know how it does that. I never gave it my number. “I’m stuck on a cliff, and you’re out gallivanting around without a care in the world.”

I spend a lot of time picking the Roomba up, moving it eighteen inches, and turning it back on. “There, there. You’re safe. And you don’t look fat.” But it’s worth it. It beats doing the entire job of vacuuming with my own two hands.

The Roomba can’t climb stairs. As far as I know. This is its biggest flaw. As a result, I was forced to buy a second vacuum. A Eufy. Reviewers liked it better than the Roomba, and it’s cheaper. It has no phone capabilities. After dealing with the Roomba’s constant cries for attention, I viewed this as a plus.

The Eufy is running right now. It has two side brushes, and the Roomba has only one.

Uh oh. I just heard a crunchy sound.

It was nibbling on an adaptor cord. No harm done. When I got up to save it, I started moving things around and clearing the floor. I didn’t realize how messy the room was until I turned the Eufy on. It is training me to be neat.

The machine has been running for about 10 minutes, and I have had to get up twice. The first time, it was in my bedroom, making a distress beep. It had sucked up the little wire antenna from my clock radio, and it had used it to pull the radio under the bed. I got there before it did whatever nefarious deed it was trying to conceal.

This house has two staircases. I was worried that the Eufy would fall down the stairs as soon as I turned it on, but I have watched it back away from the stairs already, and it seems to have some sense of self-preservation.

Another nice thing about the Eufy: it doesn’t have to ram into the wall in order to know it’s time to turn around. It senses walls from a few inches away. This should make it easier on baseboards and furniture.

Months ago, I knew the Roomba might damage the paint on my baseboards, but I pictured myself sweating over a real vacuum cleaner, like a peasant, and I decided I didn’t care. Paint is cheap.

I like this machine. It’s lower than the Roomba, so it doesn’t hit as many things. It’s very quiet, too. I hope it works out.

I’m a dusty guy. I don’t like to vacuum, and I tend to create clutter, so dust is one of my curses. The Roomba has sucked up all sorts of dust downstairs over the last few months. If the Eufy does the same thing up here, dust will no longer be a problem.

It’s quiet. What happened? Just a minute.

It was in my bedroom again, at the other end of the house. Maybe going after the clock radio again. VENDETTA!

Here’s a photo of the Eufy, shortly after I launched it on its maiden voyage. It has a glass top, so it probably won’t get scratched up like the Roomba. Or maybe it will. I don’t know.

I’m stuck here writing about vacuum cleaners because it’s too hot to move. Outside, I mean. The fricking daily rain turns this area into a steam bath. Today we had blazing sun and almost no clouds, but I promise you, it will be raining shortly. I don’t even have to look.

Another fun purchase: I’m getting a ballast box for my tractor. Not the little tractor. The big one. My tractor came with a bush hog attached, and people advised me to leave it on. They said the weight would be helpful when I lifted stuff with the front end loader. That’s true, but it also makes banging noises, and it digs trenches in the dirt when I turn. I need some other form of weight.

You can buy weights made for tractors. You can get steel weights that go on the front, and you can get giant steel disks that mount on the rear wheel hubs. I don’t need weight up front, obviously, and the wheel hub weights look like a bad move.

When you lift stuff with a front end loader (or “FEL,” as we tractor experts call them), you turn your tractor into a seesaw. The fulcrum is the front wheels. You can actually lift the rear wheels off the ground if you lift too much with the FEL. Supposedly, this is bad. You want to reduce the weight on the front tires because the front end of a tractor is wimpy. Stressing the front suspension repeatedly leads to problems and repairs.

If you put a big weight behind the rear wheels, you create a lifting force on the front wheels. Think about it. Wheel weights can’t do that. They put weight on the wheels themselves, so there is no helpful new seesaw effect with the rear wheels as the fulcrum.

A ballast box is a big steel box you fill with heavy stuff. You mount it on your three-point hitch, behind the rear wheels. It improves your rear wheel traction and takes weight off the front axle. I need one.

You can fill them with concrete or rocks. I decided to use sand. The upper area of a ballast box is a good place to put things like chainsaws. If I use sand, I’ll have a nice soft bed for my tools. I’ll have to keep sand out of them, but it will be better than bouncing on concrete. Also, I can drain sand out if I want to. Some day I may want to transport my ballast box. It weighs 132 pounds empty and about 982 full. You can see why I might want to dump the sand. Can’t dump concrete.

I tried to remove the bush hog once. It did not cooperate. But I know it’s possible. The whole purpose of a three-point hitch is to allow you to change implements, so there has to be a way to get my bush hog loose.

I didn’t want to remove it, because I knew I would have to leave it out in the weather. Having looked at it carefully, I know realize this is a stupid concern. The paint is in bad shape. It has clearly seen plenty of rain in its day. I don’t think it will hurt it to sit outside.

The tractor stays indoors. Unlike the bush hog, it looks great.

In a few days I’ll have a ballast box, and then I can run to Home Depot for 16 bags of sand. I have sand on my farm, but it’s full of bugs and poop. I want nice sand, not a fire ant farm full of gopher droppings.

I haven’t seen the Eufy in a while. Hang on.

Bedroom. It found a flashlight on the floor and tried to eat the lanyard. Then it turned itself off out of spite.

Still better than doing the work myself.

Once I manage to get the ballast box working, I plan to start using a harrow to drag my yard. I have lots of crap stuck in the grass. Spanish moss and live oak leaves, mainly. I can’t take it any more. It has to go. I think a harrow is the only thing that will get it loose. I can’t use one with the bush hog attached. I can get one for the garden tractor, but it would be small and therefore inferior.

Maybe I’m wrong. A small harrow would get into more places.

If I can get used to swapping implements, I can get a box blade and really get stuff done. I could level roads, which would be nice.

I can hear the Eufy. Things must be okay.

I keep getting more things done than I used to. God is freeing me from restraints. Supernatural stuff is going on. God keeps showing me that the things I thought he was telling me really did come from him.

It’s a relief. It means life will continue to improve, not just while I’m here on earth, but after I die.

People don’t believe what I say. That’s unfortunate, because it would help them. Pride in doctrine is a major stronghold.

The Eufy is back! Oh, no. It found a USB cord. But it escaped!

I should get another one of these things. Maybe they get lonely.

The second story of this house is probably 2500 square feet, and the Eufy is killing it. I think I’ve found my dream wife.

If I ever get the ballast box working, I’ll blog it. I can’t wait to use the tractor without having to hear the bush hog bouncing up and down.