Yard Czar

Have you ever had one of those stupid pain-in-the-butt-I-don't-have-time-for-this things happen and there is NO ONE TO BLAME BUT YOURSELF? Today is turning out to be one of those days.

All started well this beautiful Monday morning. I got up at 5 AM, went for a run with my friend, got the kids ready for school, drove an uneventful AM carpool drop-off (worth mentioning as all are not classified in this manner) and headed home to do some mowing before the rain gods begin to dance again tonight. I don't mind mowing really. Believe me, I am not one to shirk my yard duties. I would rather mow and fertilize than clean my own house. My yard stays neater longer. Seeing that my husband works hard at his job, I have taken over the yard working duties for the most part. Living on an acre, this is no small task. The estimated completion time for mowing the back 40 is one solid hour with no smoke breaks. Weed eating adds a good 30-45 minutes if you can get the stupid thing started, don't run out of gas, twine is loaded properly, you get my drift.

Let me preface this occasion by stating that our mower is not the fanciest thing on the block but it does a good job - most of the time. I am sure that Briggs & Stratton make a fine mower. Ours has just seen better days. Being 7 years old, possibly 8 (when you adopt from Ebay, they leave you to wonder exactly how old something is and don't know the conversion from human years to mower hours to dog years and back). My husband will say that most of the wear and tear caused to our mower is my doing - oh, have you seen my car? Last summer when the engine threw a rod while I was mowing, I got blamed for that too. I wish I had that kind of power. Considering my motto is "Drive it like you stole it", he may be correct in his assessment of my mowing skills. My husband also has a motto. It goes something like "You break it, you fix it". So I did.

It never seems to fail that as soon as the thought of "Whew, almost done", crosses your mind, it all goes to crap. I was on the last swipe of the drill field when I decided I was tired of mowing around the circular metal pieces that surrounds only ONE of of our many trees. I opted to pull it up and allow the grass and fireants to take over the last 12 square inches that they had not covered yet, and just mow around this tree as I do all the others. In my haste to "Git 'er done", I neglected to see the coated wire rope (even though I had already moved it twice) that we use to tie up our crazy untrained bird dog when the kids are playing outside so she won't claw you to death. As I mowed over the wire rope, believe it or not, the engine came to a grinding halt and the mower died. Imagine......

This was the moment of Holy S- - -, I-cannot-believe-I-just-did-that. Not only was I totally irked, but I could hear my father laughing in the background. You see, mowing used to be my job when I was in high school. I would mow our 3/4 of an acre on our riding mower back then too. I only needed 2 things to mow: gas and a pair of channel lock pliers. Our yard was bordered on one side and the back by woods. In the far back corner of our lot, there was not much grass growing due to the shade but there were weeds. I was expected to knock these out also, and as we all know, where there are trees, there are roots. The gas is a gimme; gotta make the mower run, right? The pliers were for unrolling the metal edge of the mower guard after I so expertly mowed over the roots. Touche' - win one for me and my mower.

The wire rope would not defeat me in this instance either. I fashion myself somewhat of an independent person, my husband travels often and we get along just fine when he is gone. Even do a little work with the drill and the Saws-All occassionally ( I have a new found appreciation for that tool!). Therefore, when the mower shut down, I went to work. It only took me 35 minutes and 3 fireant bites to remove the 16 ft. of wire rope from the mower blade and it is all still in one piece. Less a few inches of plastic coating but who needs that, right? Just less for Hazel to eat.

I think Jesus said something like "Go and be productive". So off I go. Yard mowed, load of laundry going and my kids will be home in 2.5 hours and I have not even showered yet.
Here's to Miller Time! Me - 2, Mower - 0.

Queen Bee