Painting and Solenoids

I've been doing a bit of painting lately. Here's an acrylic on canvas of the Ellis house at the Ellis Bird Farm in Lacombe.

I see that photographing a painting is an art in itself which I will have to work on. The canvas is not really crooked, and the colors are a little more vivid.

Other than that, I've been trying to get my garden tractor working. It seems to be the starter/solenoid assembly, which will be a $450 touch. I've ordered a new one, which will come from Indianapolis. I was told that it used to be a little less expensive to fix them, so you could buy them reconditioned, but now that labour has gone from $20 per hour to $100 per hour it's not worth it, and you might as well buy it new.

I paid $1500 for the tractor (it was already "old"), it's a Ford LS45 hydrostatic and has a good Kohler engine. I've had it modified so it will carry a snowthrower so I don't really want to throw it out, just fix it. The mechanic helping me is 15 years old. Yay country boys!