Thursday, October 18, 2012

The other kind of day



Wednesday morning I started thinking about the farm stay students that were arriving on Sunday and all the chores waiting for me.  Johnny is back to working under pressure for the moment and so that left me in charge.  The grass, although not long had tons of leaves laying around which needed to be mulched.   I woke up with the resolve that Wednesday would be dedicated to garden work.  After saying goodbye to everyone for the day I grabbed a cap from the cupboard and headed outside.   I made my way over to the garage and was immediately confronted with a flat tyre on the ride on.  Now don’t get me wrong, while I’m very grateful for modern equipment and by no means would like to cut the grass around the house with a push mower, there are numerous parts of this modern equipment which need maintenance and seem to, well just complicate life.  So I turned around to go find the compressor and had to look for the pipe that is attached to it.  After a few minutes I located it lying curled up in the corner of the garage.  Okay so I was moving ahead but now the part that inserts into the tyre was missing.  Another hide and seek mission.  Finally I got everything together and pumped up the wheel.  I checked the petrol tank to see how much petrol I had.  It seemed sufficient.  I jumped on the ride on and swung the key eager to get started.  Nothing!  The battery was flat.     Everything today seems like an effort and I was tiring already.   I got off the ride on and pushed it to the fence where I brought my car to and hauled out the jumper cables.   Because there was a fence between the ride on and the car I had to make numerous trips back and forth through the gate to the left of the fence to attached the cables, start the vehicle, go back and start the ride-on then back to detach the jumpers, move the car and finally I was ready to cut the lawn.  It was a slow start but at least I was on my way now.  After the back garden was almost done, the worse thing happened!  I ran out of petrol on a downhill.   I just sat there ready to cry.  I remember checking the fuel canister before I started out this morning and there was none left so that meant a trip to the fuel station.  I left to go get fuel.  Glancing at my watch it was almost lunch time and yet I was still struggling to just get this job done.   Back at home the fuel was poured in and I silently prayed for it to start on the first swing.  Sadly it did not so I prayed for the strength to push the heavy ride on back up to the fence yet again.  It was around this time that my resolve to cut the grass became almost non-existent I must just add.  By the time I had her up at the fence again and the car back ready to jump start her, I felt like I was melting in the midday sun.  It was well past lunch time so huffing and puffing after the exertion I’d just been through I decided to go inside for a breather and lunch.  Refuelled a half an hour later I put my cap on my head determined to finish what I had started.  In the front garden I had to weave around all the cars parked all over.  Kicking myself for not reminding Jonathan to park his car plus his old Ute on the drive way this morning I left the motor running as I went back inside to look for the keys to move the vehicles out the way.  I couldn’t find them and even tried to ring him at work.  There was no reply.  Okay so I reasoned, I would cut around them for now.  Out I went to the idling ride on and carried on.  As I neared the end of the front garden I suddenly hit something really hard and I had dust swirling in the air around me like crazy.  Something was wrong.  It felt like the whole deck had dislodged.  There would be no more grass cutting today.  Defeated I parked the mower on the driveway and went inside to clean up.  I needed a shower as I was covered in dirt from top to bottom.  There are days that are good and then there are days like this.

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