What was that big cloud of smoke hanging over Ed’s Garage?” I asked, slipping into a booth in the Kingbird Café opposite my neighbour Vern Bunton.
“That’s been there for years. Haven’t you seen that before?”
Vern was joking, of course. Ed’s Garage is populated by a loose association of mechanical geniuses, volunteer firemen and after-market adapters who meet endlessly to discuss engines and drive-trains around an old oil-burning stove whose noxious fumes drift down over Port Petunia and out into the lake where they irritate boaters and ice fishermen.
Read Also
Ground rules for farm family communications
Establishing meeting ground rules can help your family find ways to communicate that work for your farm. Here are some…
“Max Brewer’s snowmobile blew up,” said Vern mildly.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Some sort of electrical problem complicated by a failure in the integrity of the fuel reservoir. As we say so often with small engines, it could have been a lot worse.”
“Was anybody hurt?” I asked.
“His dog is being treated for shock but they say he’s going to be all right. The volunteers and the police were called but the fire burned itself out quickly and they have handed off to the Port Petunia Glass Company and a couple of carpenters.”
Ed’s Garage is a magical place. If your four-year-old has toddled into the middle of a restoration project for a 1952 John Deere AR and managed to toss all of the lugs and bolts for the rear wheels into the deep grass of the orchard, you will find their replacements somewhere on a shelf in Ed’s basement. That is how I stumbled into the place 10 years ago and that is how I first met Max.
Max is one of the denizens at Ed’s and his specialty is the small engine. I have an uneasy relationship with these machines due to a couple of spectacular two-stroke incidents in my youth. The first involved an ancient rototiller in my mother’s garden and the second occurred at sea when my Uncle Bert’s bored-out, recently adapted outboard motor parted company with the ship and its occupants. I have done no lake fishing since, but Max has patiently coaxed me back into the world of internal combustion.
I would not be able to maintain a country property without Max’s advice and support. Years ago, he offered to cut the lawns around the house and barn for $25 a pop and I jumped at the chance, because it was costing me three times that in gas and repairs plus the aggravation of watching my sons smash into flower pots and drive over rare plants.
Every Saturday, Max and his dog would putter around on a clapped-out Mastercraft riding lawnmower that made a noise like a low-flying F-18 and left a choking fog of blue smoke in its wake. One day, I heard a loud explosion in the yard and looked out half expecting to see Max and the dog spread-eagled on the flagstones. But Max was calmly winching the lawnmower back onto his truck. By the time I jogged out to ask what had happened he was gone. An hour later he and the dog were back puttering around on the same mower, spewing a slightly thinner quality of blue smoke.
“All these little tractors are different brands and colours,” Max explained. “But they all use the same engine. I pick them up at yard sales for nothing. You spray the carburetor, change the gas, put in a new plug and away they go. If one blows up, I’ve got six more in the garage.”
Max gradually restored my interest in small engine ownership. Today I own 12 and I am mowing my own lawn again, as well as whipper-snipping, chain-sawing, hedge clipping and rototilling. Just last month, my 10-year-old snowblower blew up in the barnyard with a report that sent the sheep skittering down to the pond in a panic. The commercial outlets assured me that an old machine like that couldn’t be repaired and showed me the merits of the latest $2,000 model with Multi-Traction and electrically heated handles. I called Max and before the next storm cloud blew in off the lake and drifted up the pathway to the barn, he had found me a replacement engine from a recently deceased snowblower (different colour and brand, of course, but with the exact same motor).
“He is a local treasure,” agreed Vern, sipping his coffee. “But I don’t know why that dog still lives with him.”
