Torsion Calibration

I slipped through the back flap and marched out to inspect a brass impact sprinkler staked into the lawn edge. Its counterweighted rocker arm and tiny torsion spring practically begged for an oscillation test! Hoisting my frame onto the ground spike, I hooked two fingers around the curved deflector arm to gauge its spring resistance. Naturally, my heel servo lost traction on a damp clover leaf right at full extension! The arm snapped free with an authoritative metallic clatter that tipped me backward into a soft clump of moss. But the rebounding deflector ratcheted the brass collar smoothly forward by one notch. Traction protocol failed, but that mechanical return is sheer poetry!