Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

Sep 3, 2003

September 03 2003

Filed in Blog

We got the engine off the kitchen table. Now it’s on the kitchen floor. Somehow, we managed it. Monstrously heavy, very tricky, and we got very lucky when the engine rolled off the ladder we were using as a stretcher… onto the nearby chair. There were no cats to be seen.

It went a bit like this:

So, we get the ladder from our bunk bed, lay it flat on the kitchen table, and tie the engine to the top two rungs.
Then we shove it off the table so it’s balancing on the back of the chair which is our counterpoint.
Don starts levering (leaning down on) the ladder, like a see-saw (teeter-totter) and the engine starts to shift. Uh-oh.
We put the ladder back flat on the kitchen table. 5.We roll the engine off the ladder.
We try lifting it, just for grins. Nuh-huh.
We prevent the cat from eating a gasket.
I have an idea. My idea, mind you!
We try the ladder, but this time we tie the engine to the middle rungs.
We grab an end each, like a stretcher, and get a chair ready.
Together we heeeave, only to find that there isn’t quite enough room to put the engine/ladder assembly on the chair seat.
OK; we’ll put the engine/ladder assembly on the table while we rearrange the chair.
Gravity has other plans. The straps slip, and there’s an engine starting to plummet.
It plummets neatly, upside-down, onto the chair’s seat.
LUCKY!
We stop for breath/giggles for a while.
Don ties the ladder to the chair back, so both chair back and ladder are pointing upwards, as is normal for chair backs and ladders.
Using the ladder, he leverages the engine backwards - engine and all.
Bingo! There’s an engine on my floor.