Monday, August 21, 2006, 20:40
Quitting While I'm Ahead
Have you ever had one of those days when you figure you better quit while you're ahead?
My hour and a half long session of yard work started out all right today. The first thing I did was rake the grass Randy had mowed on Saturday over the drainfield.
Raking was a piece of cake. The grass was dried out enough so that I could feed some of it to the horses. I didn't want feed too much to Kajun and Isabelle, but they eat got a pile of grass clippings. There's still five or six piles out there, so they'll have treats for a couple of days, if it doesn't rain on the piles so they get wet again and turn moldy.
When I finished raking, I got out the old lawn mower. The one that's like pushing a tank. The one that mows all of the tough stuff. The one that "takes a licking and keeps on ticking." The new mowers just are not made to hold up as well as that old mower.
I got it started and then headed out behind the barn to mow. In the last week, the grass behind the barn grew so much that when I stood in it, I had trouble seeing my shoes. So it definitely was time to mow the grass.
It ended up being one of those "three steps forward two steps back" deals for mowing. The grass is long and lush and tender and soft, and the mower moving forward bends over about half of the grass, which doesn't get cut, so then you have to back up and go over it again if you want to get all of the grass cut.
I worked my way around the section between the barn and the hayfield. Then I mowed the narrow strip between the garden and the barn.
So far, so good.
After that I started on the section on the other side of the garden.
When I got to my flower bed, that's when the trouble started.
Last year, I planted a flower bed underneath the box elder tree. I moved some of my mother's peony there, and I planted some of my grandmother's autumn sedum, plus I also planted another shallot bed. And I moved a wild columbine there and also a wild rose bush.
It was so hot and dry this summer that I am afraid pretty much everything died out in my flower bed. I tried watering it, but it didn't seem to help much.
Now that we've gotten a little rain, the weeds are growing gangbusters in my flower bed. Knee-high white cockle. Knee high ragweed. Knee-high alyssum. Waist high pigweed.
If there are any flowers and shallots left after the hot, dry weather, the weeds would surely finish them off.
So -- I went after the weeds with the lawn mower.
I was doing all right, too, until I hit a rock. I've got rocks piled up around the edge of the flower bed, but the weeds were so thick I couldn't see all of them.
Ka-thunk! went the mower and stopped dead.
I heaved a sigh and turned the mower on its side.
A rock about the size of my fist was wedged between the blade and the bed of the mower.
Goody.
I tried to pry the rock out with my fingers, but nothing doing.
Went to the shed to get Randy's Grandma Merle's iron tool. It's a flat, iron thingy-dingy on one end with an iron handle. We use it to scrape the grass off the bottom of the mowers.
I whacked the rock.
I chipped at the rock.
I pushed the rock.
I whacked it some more.
Chipped it some more.
Pushed it some more.
Finally it moved a bit.
So I whacked it again.
Pushed it again.
Finally it popped out from between the blade and the mower.
I laid the rock back by the flower bed, tipped the mower back down, and tried to start it.
Buzzzz-whir. Buzzzz-whir. Buzzzz-whir. went the mower. Buzzzz-whir. Buzzzz-whir. Buzzzz-whir.
Finally, the mower started. Buuuzzzzz-cha-thunk-chink.Buuuzzzzz-cha-thunk-chink.Buuuzzzzz-cha-thunk-chink.Buzzzz-whir.Buzzzz-whir.Buzzzzzzzzzzzz
This was not -- I noticed -- the way the mower had sounded BEFORE I hit the rock.
I mowed a little more by the flower bed and the "Buuuzzzzz-cha-thunk-chink" settled down into a steady buzzzzzzzzzz-whir.
Mower still didn't sound right.
But I figured I might as well keep going and at least get that little section mowed.
I stopped the mower. Moved a couple of rocks. Pushed the mower into the flower bed.
And goodbye ragweed, pigweed, white cockle and alyssum.
I had no more than pulled the mower back out of the flower bed when -- ka-whump! went the mower and stopped dead again.
I heaved a sigh and turned it over.
Oh, great. Now the mower had an orange plastic piece of baler twine wrapped around the blade.
Five minutes later, I had the baler twine out of the mower.
I started the mower again, and buzzzzzzzzzz-whirbuzzzzzzzzzz-whirbuzzzzzzzzzz-whir
I had about two feet left to mow, then I figured I'd better shut off the mower and call it good before I destroyed something else.
I'm thinking that the lawn more blade is probably bent. I hope that's all it is anyway.
With sweat dripping down my neck and down my back and off my face, I pushed the mower into the lean-to and headed back up to the house. It's kind of hot to mow anymore this afternoon, anyway.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Saturday, August 19, 2006, 03:51
When the Day is Done. . .
This is downright depressing.
In June, the sun was setting at 10 minutes to 9 p.m. At 10:30 p.m., faint light remained in the sky to the west.
The sun is setting now at a little past 8 p.m.
It is pretty much dark by 9 p.m.
I want my hour and a half of daylight back!
That was one of the things I enjoyed so much about growing up on the farm -- those long evenings of daylight when we sat out in the swing Dad built in the backyard and listened to the robins singing good night and to the whippoorwills singing hello to the night and to the mosquitoes buzzing in the tops of the trees (just as long the mosquitoes STAYED in the tops of the trees).
And also during those long evenings of daylight after the milking was done, sometimes Dad and I would go fishing at the Norton Slough. The Hay River has a series of backwaters, and the Norton Slough, only a mile or so from our farm, is one of them.
In those days, the Norton Slough had plenty of water in it, and you could catch all kinds of fish -- redhorse and crappies and perch and sunfish and northerns and maybe a musky once in a while.
The upper end of the Norton Slough is very different today -- shallow and brackish with the unpleasant smell of rotting vegetation on hot summer days. The river has changed its flow pattern, and that end of the slough is now cut off from the river. The northerns that remain are stunted in the warm, shallow water.
The long evenings of daylight when I was a kid was also the time that Dad and I would visit the garden. Dad didn't believe in planting a small garden. He was a farmer, and if he planted a garden, it was a GARDEN. We would check to see what was blossoming and what was ripe and could be eaten right off the vine -- peas and beans and ground cherries and tomatoes.
These are the things I think about now during the long evenings of daylight at the end of May and throughout June and July. The things I think about when my husband and I are making a trip to check the garden and when we are going for a walk with the dogs through the twilight evening.
It's funny, you know. The time when light stays in the sky until 10 p.m. or 10:30 only lasts for two months. But while it is here, it seems right and proper, somehow.
By August, the days have shortened substantially, and the loss of daylight continues at a steady pace until in December, when the sun sets at 4:30 p.m. and it is dark at 5 o'clock.
But that, too, only lasts for a short time because by January, the days have gotten a bit longer again, and once again, we are headed toward longer days and warmer days and the sunny, hot days of summer.
So from now until it is too cold to sit outside in the evening, I am going to enjoy whatever there is of the evening to enjoy. It is a gift I will keep in my heart to take me through the long, cold winter nights until finally, once again, there is a little light in the sky yet at 10:30 p.m.
LeAnn R. Ralph