Well, I did make some progress on the FPGA thing yesterday, though there's still some to do. At least I'm now reasonably clear on what still needs doing.
Also, and in lower-tech areas of endeavor... I did some shovel work on the little drainage ditch that crosses the driveway; last time it was flowing, I'd noticed that it was backing up right at the fence line, and flowing across the grass and into the low-lying area of the driveway instead of proceeding to the little culvert.
And, out in the barn, I hoisted the mower deck up again and got it stable enough to go after it - cautiously! - with a pipe wrench, bending the offending flange back into something like its proper place, so the blade now clears it. This involved around one and a half square feet of torque (a foot and a half of leverage times pushing on it with my foot on account of I couldn't apply enough force with my hand under the circumstances). Fixing it properly will still, someday, involve strapping it to the pallet forks, taking it to someplace with electricity, grinding away at the (not very good) weld, re-welding, cleaning up, and applying a fresh coat or two of Kubota-orange spray paint, whereof I now have a can, but since I haven't done any welding in a couple-dozen years now, and the new flux-core welder needs to be tested on something less expensive first, I think that waits for a while.
This morning brings the hay-mowing guy; a few days hence, all the tall stuff should be cut and the hay baled and hauled off, and it'll be time to decide where walking paths are going to be and start maintaining them myself. Also, it's coming up on time for a couple of minor earth-moving projects, so I'll be exploring the possibilities of the loader and the box blade.
Afterthought: I omitted, while the mower deck was up, to measure the nuts so's I could buy the proper size of socket for maintenance. Foo.
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