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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