Shortest mowing effort ever
Last weekend, I was trying to get the yard caught up. Again. With as much rain as we’ve been having, keeping things mowed and trimmed has been a challenge. (Not to mention the poor farmers, who are not just having trouble keeping curb appeal, but making a living!)
I fired up the weed whacker on Saturday evening and zipped along the fence row in front of the house. And by “zipped along,” I mean it took me over an hour. Part of that was simply spent stepping out of the way of the traffic that flies along that stretch of road, but still. I was pretty tired when I finished.
However, I jumped on the riding mower and went down to mow the little patch that can accommodate a mower. I made one pass-ONE PASS-before I felt the lurching that suggests the mower is out of gas.
Sure enough, the mower stopped and shut off. I hollered up into the driveway for my son to grab a gas can, and he hollered back that we had only empty ones. I shouted again to bring the side by side down so we could winch the lawnmower and haul it back to the garage.
He came down in the skid loader, which I told him was not what I asked, and made a point to tell him that if he would simply listen to me, things would be simpler for all of us. He went back to the garage and got the side by side like I told him.
I should have known that making a big deal out of it would bite me in the butt. However, I was fed up and short-fused, and that tends to make me dig in my heels and be a stickler for just one thing to go the way I want.
He hooked the winch to the lawnmower and began to back up. He had moved a mere six inches when the rope snapped and the lawnmower drifted back to its starting position. The toolbox was not in the side by side, and like a bad farmer, I had no penknife in my pocket.
I sent him back to the garage for a knife and a pair of pliers. When he came back, I took the knife and tried to cut the piece of rope that remained attached to the hook. Then I saw that the hook was attached to the rope with a pin, so I used the pliers to pull it and the rope end fell out.
Next, I tied a new knot in the end of the rope and reattached it to the hook. I rehooked the mower to the side by side, climbed on the mower and told my son to go.
He began to back up again, and the hook popped loose. I again drifted back into the original place. He got out of the side by side and began mumbling about how I put the hook in upside down, and maybe a little bit about how the skid loader and a chain would have been faster than the method I requested.
I was too tired to argue the point, especially considering he may have been right, and held on as he pulled me backward up the driveway. We pushed the mower into the garage, and I hit the showers. I had definitely had my fill for the evening. I’ll try again if it ever stops raining.
Laura Zoeller can be reached at zoeller5@verizon.net.