Last summer it occurred to me that one thing that everyone had in times past to help with the multitude of backbreaking chores WAS A HORSE. It occurred to me that while I couldn't have a live horse, it might prove extremely handy to have just one or two generic little engines that could with a pulley on it from which to belt drive any number of useful things. I searched and found I needed one with a horizontal shaft and found several little engines for around $10 to $20 apiece at garage sales.. Very cheap, because as the sellers said "the engine runs great but youll never get the edger (0r reel type lawnmower) working again, parts arent available anymore" So now I have a stable of several horses. PS: Don't get an old generator engine-- It has a tapered shaft you cant put a pulley on. A vertical shaft lawnmower engine is too hard to harness with a belt unless you need vertical shaft driven. Most applications call for horizontal drive shaft.

-- Ann Fisher (zyax55b@prodigy.com), December 09, 1998

Answers

Horses eat grain and grass (fresh or dried), both of which grow.

Little engines eat gasoline, which doesn't. It doesn't even store well.

Little wood-burning steam engines, now -- they have real possibilities.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), December 09, 1998.

That's interesting - the idea of getting little bitty gas engines for general chores did not occur to me. If you can get them buggers running - the old ones seem tempermental (-1 sp).

Before putting a lot of effort in it (you'll need gas too) make sure you know what you want to do with the "rotating shaft." Without a specific chore - it's just a spinning wheel burning gasoline..

Anybody else see a wierd 02/18/1999 mirage about windowing pop-up?

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), February 18, 1999.

Yep, saw it too. Someone named "moe" is providing a live tutorial on windowing...

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.com), February 18, 1999.

I wonder if that is GMT or EST or local or NZ time? Wasn't real specific about what window he washed, was he?

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), February 18, 1999.