My family and friends will tell you that I've never been the handyman type. I feel like I've accomplished a major mechanical feat if I can get my car door open and shut without breaking anything. It's only been in the last few months that I have been able to figure out that the clothes dryer stops working when its door is open.

On the other hand, I've really learned a lot about amateur plumbing, heating and air conditioning. Mostly that you should leave plumbing, heating and air conditioning to the professionals.

A recent foray into plumbing involved an upstairs toilet which had begun running continuously even after the traditional step of "jiggling the handle." I opened up the back to uncover an apparatus that must have been the original design created by Sir John Crapper, the 19th century British inventor of the flush toilet. It consisted of a rare copper pipe protruding from the bottom of the tank, a ball-shaped piece of black rubber -- not the usual plastic found today -- attached to a copper alloy rod and a metal chain-and-valve mechanism which was supposed to seal the bottom of the tank after each flush. The problem lay in the fact that the valve didn't close all the way and water leaked perpetually into the part known to us semiprofessionals as the "toilet bowl."

Pondering this mess, I soon figured that the valve wouldn't close because the big rubber ball thingy wasn't bent far enough below the water level to create a tight seal. Easy. Just bend the copper alloy rod downward and the increased water pressure on the ball thingy would tighten the valve seal. Or something.

I bent the rod downward only to discover on the next flush that the ball thingy was now keeping the entire chain-and-valve gizmo from flopping down and stopping the flow of water, thus overfilling the "toilet bowl." Just in time, I reversed my bend and gave it a little twist to the left. Now the ball thingy scraped against the side of the tank. A few dozen twists and turns later, I had the proper adjustment so that the valve closed tightly and the water stopped flowing. Hooray. I put the lid back on only to discover that I had bent the rod too high and the tank cover now forced it downward and renewed the leak.

I will not continue this account because it goes way into the night with much cursing and hairpulling. I will simply say that the upstairs toilet is not leaking. We have two other perfectly good bathrooms to use so I have sealed off the door to that bathroom.

And I have been equally successful at heating and air conditioning problems, which I turned over to professionals after causing only minor havoc. Now I confine myself to matters within my own field of endeavor -- refrigerator mechanics and child-rearing.

Just a few minutes ago, I went to the small refrigerator we have in the basement to retrieve a soft drink. I quickly found the two Cokes I had placed in there with a warning to my grandchildren and other young visitors that they were mine, mine, mine and only mine. They had not been taken like so many other secret caches of soft drinks and other goodies. No, they had EXPLODED! Someone (I will not accuse any specific child yet until the DNA evidence comes back) had turned the refrigerator control to "Siberia" and not only had the soft drinks exploded into sticky shards of ice, but all the other stuff in there was solid as a rock.

But, hey, I'm a handyman now. I wiped up the mess, readjusted the control and, bending into my task just like a real professional refrigerator man with my workpants riding a little lower in the back than modesty requires, fixed the problem.

The child-rearing part will be accomplished as soon as I can find out which one of them readjusted that temperature control.

What's this, the novice householder will inquire, don't you mean the fall harvest? It's the spring planting, the summer growing, the fall harvest and the winter fallow season. That's the natural progression of things and that's the way we've always done it.

Don't try to tell that to my wife. She's in the middle of fall planting and she wants to involve anyone else who's dumb enough to accept this antiseasonal dementia. This time, it's the tulip and narcissus bulbs that are awaiting their home under the few patches of uninterrupted lawn we have left.

When we started out with this little plot of subdivision land about 30 years ago, it was a pleasant double lot with a few youngish trees, some nice flowering shrubs and tiny flower beds. I thought it looked good except there was an awful lot of grassy lawn to mow with the primitive instruments we used back in those days. My suggestion for the installation of broad areas of green concrete was dismissed out of hand.

Instead, the planting began. First, a flower bed across the front which included dozens and dozens of tulips, narcissus, daffodils, hyacinths and crocuses (or are they croci?) All of these, as you know, have to be planted in the fall. That's when, I opined at the time, we should be raking up a few colorful leaves and enjoying the last of the vegetables in the minuscule garden plot we had in those early years.

Then, all horticulture broke loose. Two new flower beds -- 6-by-6-foot squares -- sprang up in the side yard. Four apple trees struggled against the poor soil and ridiculous flood-drought drainage of the lower lot. A pear tree blossomed between the new patches of flora on the other side of the house and a crabapple and a peach joined the fruit medley.

One year, I bought a small rock-like fountain from one of my co-workers and about the same time mentioned that some herbs might be nice among the jungle being created around our modest brick home. How was I to know that within a week or two, the fountain would be installed on the downward slope of a huge structure of railroad ties and landscape timbers. This midyard behemoth contained enough rich soil space to grow all the parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme that Simon and Garfunkel would use in a lifetime.

However, within two seasons, the bed proved unworthy of most herbs except a hardy batch of tarragon, or whatever is the name of that stuff that smells like licorice, and some catnip, which will grow anywhere in profusion if you don't chop it down with a machete and pull up all its roots. There wasn't even any parsley this year except a tiny sprig that I snapped off by mistake in late March.

That area, too, is being prepared this year for fall planting as is the plot my wife created for our granddaughter who lives across town from us. While I regularly complain about this autumn ritual, it would be unfair (not to mention a damnable lie) to indicate that I have done much to create or maintain this botanical bonanza. My contribution lies in supervision and constructive criticism.

Thus, while the fall planting season is well underway, I can't seem to find time to dig up sections of the yard or to poke around in the cold dirt. I can, however, lend my expertise about where the red tulips would look best and how many daffodils should congregate in the distant spring show that will follow winter.

Thank goodness, there's no winter planting season. I'd be exhausted. (There isn't any winter planting season, is there, dear? Stop smiling like that and tell me, is there?)