Parker

Reagrding aerating, is it necessary before re-seeding? I am sure it would be helpful, but is it a must?

Looked at all of these before I posted. The parks linked are too far for me to drive to, shoot and get back. I considered Theo Wirth, but the description of the park on the Minneapolis Park Board site does not say that archery is available. Is it? Does anyone know of any city parks that may be an option? Also, the Elm Creek park archery site looks awesome. I will need to check that one out on a weekend.

Hi - I work in the 394/169 area and would like to shoot my bow over my lunch hour. I havent been able to locate any city or county archery ranges close enough that would allow me to shoot at lunch and get back to work in a reasonable amount of time. Is anyone aware of any place in Golden Valley, St. Louis Park, Plymouth, Minnetonka, etc. area that would fit what I am looking for?

Hi - I am going to overseed this fall, but have a question about how raking leaves may impact this effort. I could overseed right now, but my concern is that I have a lot of oak trees that will start droppnig leaves soon. My fear is that if I overseed now it would be a wasted effort as when I rake up leaves it will minimalize the overseeding effort. My question really is, can I wait until late October / early November to seed or is that too late? I would like for the leaves to be gone before I do this. Also, any tips on overseeding in the fall? Good idea or should I wait until spring?

Hi – In the past 10 years I haven’t picked up a bow, but I want to get back into bow hunting. My current bow is an old PSE. From what I have been reading there have been many advances in the bow hunting world since I was semi-interested in it. From what I can gather, bows today are much faster than what I am used to. I would like to get new bow, but it must be reasonably priced. My question is, should I purchase a bow package from one of the big box stores, or should I purchase a 2-3 year old bow that someone has traded in at one of the more specialty type shops. I don’t even know my draw length anymore. My goal in getting a package would be that I could get arrows and broadheads and be ready to hit the range. Less fuss. My goal in getting a used bow would be that it was the cats meow a couple years ago and is still pretty dang good, but I would be getting it at a steep discount. All things being equal, I think I’d rather have a 2-3 year old Mathews than a new Bear. Am I off base?

Batteries are brand new Insterstate 29's. Literally less than a month old. The trolling motor worked fine with the new batteries for the first 2 weeks I had them. The foot pedal was bought less than a week ago once this started happening. I think we can rule both of them out as culprits. I think it either is a connection issue or a montherboard issue. I lean towards connection due to the fact that is works some times and not others, but what do I know. Is there any way the male plug connecting my trolling motor to my foot pedal could have gone bad? If not, I am back to the more sever issue like the motherboard.

Hi, I have a 70 lbs thrust Minnkota Powerdrive trolling motor with copilot. Last week the trolling motor would not turn on occassion when the foor pedal was depressed. It would respond perfectly when using the copilot. It did not happen all the time, so I took the foot pedal apart and cleaned it and tested it. Same problem. led me to believe the foot pedal was bad. Not the first time this has happened so I went and purchased a new foot pedal. After plugging in the new foot pedal I had the exact same problem. This led me to believe I had an issue with the contacts between the foot pedal and the trolling motor. I cleaned the male connections as best I could. Same problem. It will work great for a while (10 minutes) then stop working all together or only turn left. Also, the motherboard is less than a year old. It was replaced by an authorized minnkota repair shop in the metro after the boat came too close to a lightning strike. The lightning fried the motherboard. Any guess as to what's wrong?

When I unscrewed the valve stem I don't remember seeing a washer at all. Is it possible it disintegrated over time? There were black particles that were evident when I took the valve stem out. The valve itself is in the wall and I didn't want to try to get at it. Does the washer go over the valve stem and somehow go into the valve? I am trouble visualising how the washer interacts with the threads of the stem and valve? You guys have already been very helpful. Thanks.

I am a novice handyman trying to help out a lady friend of mine. She has a leaky faucet in her bathtub. The hot water does not appear to be shutting off completely leading to a constant drip. The drip is not a huge problem, but I was asked to fix it if I could. The hot water and cold water run to separate fixtures/knobs in the bathtub / shower. When I started playing with the hot water knob the first thing I noticed was that there was much less tension with the hot water knob than the cold water. What I mean by this is that it is easier to turn on the hot water than the cold. Less pressure is needed to turn the knob. This led me to believe that something needed to be tightened with the hot water fixture. I turned off the water to the house, dis-assemble the hot water fixture, cleaned, re-applied teflon tape, and re-assembled making sure that all figtings were tight. It didn't solve the problem. The faucet still leaks and the hot water knob is still much looser than the cold. Any suggestions? Should I just replace the fixture?

...which shows that paying for a bid is a seen by consumers as a scam.

Looks like we have a difference of opinion. Some contractors think they should get paid for bids and consumers think the bidding process is the cost of doing business. We'll see which view wins out in the long run. I am a consumer so I am biased. No way I'm paying for a bid.

I've been watching this for a couple days. Thought I would provide a consumers perpective. I recently had my homes siding and roof redone due to storm damage. This is in the cities. I also am taking bids on some work that I need done up on the range. For both jobs, if someone said that they required a fee to offer a bid I would have said, "thanks, but no thanks." Admittedly, I was, and still am price shopping. I have absolutely no qualms about saying so. I've provide the requirements for the job. I think I have every right to see what is a reasonable fee. How else is a consumer supposed to know what is reasonable without getting multiple bids? How else would someone suggest that I know if I am getting ripped off or if I am getting a fair price? We price shop for every other good or service. I am surprised that this is seen as so unique. I realize there is a cost to providing a bid, but I think consumers see it as a cost of doing business. One last comment. The bids I've received up on the range far exceed comparable work I've had done in the southern part of the state. At this point, it is cheaper to hire the same crew I had do the work on my house, bring them up to the range for a week (they are all willing - good fishing) and do the work than to hire someone local. And trust me, I would MUCH rather hire someone local, but I am not going to pay more money just to give a local guy a job.

There is a company out of Duluth that specializes in constructing garages. I have been looking at them as well as a number of local contractors. Curious if anyone has used the company out of Duluth, and if so, were you satisfied with the end result?

If you still have your manual it addresses this very issue. I've turned that function on a few times by accident. Always have to refer back to the manual for instructions on how to turn it off. Could always call Minnkota too. They walked me through it the first time.

I am building a hunting shack in northern Saint Louis County. My goal is to do this with as little cost as possible and have the end result be as maintenence free as possible. This shack will not be heated in the winter. With that criteria, it has been recommended to me that I go with vinyl windows. It has even been recommended that I stay away from vinyl clad windows because no one will be there to check for water damage on a regular basis. I've been to the big box stores and looked at theirs brand and the associated insulating factors and other characteristics. I want to be able to put these in (with some help from people that know what they are doing) and not have to worry about them again. What brand of vinyl windows do you recommend and why?