In which I learned many new things

Is it possible to plant a seed upside down?

Behold, a flat of seeds.  Basil and Parsley and Zinnias, and Comfrey, Oh My!  And behold the poor, upside down Comfrey seedling.  It's doing nicely now -- I dug out under the roots so those first two leaves could get free, managed the sun exposure carefully so the leaves would head in an 'untangled' direction, and it is now happily heading upwards without restraint.  But really -- roots up, leaves down?  How did that happen?

On the knitting front, we have my Nattroyer.  It's looking good!

And for household repairs -- I decided the back door handle really needed to be fixed or replaced.  When it takes 2 minutes, two hands, and several attempts to open the door, something needs to be done.  The obvious issue was that turning the handle didn't retract the latch/bolt at all 90% of the time, and about 1/3rd of the way the remaining 10% of the time.  Once I got the assembly off, it was pretty obvious that it was going to be replaced instead of lubricated. 

That rectangular hole, comprised of 3-4 pieces of metal, is supposed to be a square inside one piece of metal.  Oops.  Our door now opens!

And since I was on a roll with a screwdriver, I thought I would clean the vacuum agitator and such, replace the bag, etc, to see if perhaps it would work a bit better.  The bag wasn't half-full yet, but it did have a lot of drywall dust in it -- so perhaps that was the problem.

More likely, the problem was the belt.  While I was turning the agitator, the belt came off in one piece, all nice and flat.  Belts are supposed to be round.  Oops.  But, while I had it slightly apart, I figured I may as well get it more apart, so it could be more clean. 

Are the fan blades supposed to look like that?

Clean!

With help from Filia, who found a manual for the vacuum online, I was able to disassembled it down to the last two parts, which simply would not separate.  I did get the power cord entirely off, though, so everything except the motor had a journey through or across the kitchen sink, with soap, water, and scrub brush.  I'm looking forward to seeing how it works once I get a replacement belt! 

Until next week ...