What's in My Road Shoulder

Thunderstorm this afternoon as the public-works mowers along the highway were working. They left in a rush in orange trucks, parking this mower right in our road shoulder by our mailboxes, probably returning tomorrow to finish the job. Having a John Deere mower left on my property doesn't happen daily so of course after the storm I went down to inspect it. Looks a lot like a Model T Ford if you ask me. I like the sunshade at the top. Missouri summer sunshine can wham you on the head like a cast-iron frying pan, and almost everyone wears headgear so they don't get heatstroke or sun poisoning. I got mildly sun-poisoned once and had to sit out a day of my life in deep cool darkness till I felt better.

This is a sight you'll see only in the country. This picture was just so Green Acres I had to show you.

Nearly a Murder

Yesterday when mowing fairly deep grass in the meadow the mower struck an immovable object. I pushed and pushed but the mower balked and would not go over. Finally saw what the obstacle was: a turtle with shell about five inches across, all pulled in of course. Was upset and concerned I might have decapitated or maimed it...but by the time I got the mower to level ground and shut it off the turtle had walked off and was nowhere in sight. Smart turtle.

It's turtle-crossing-the-highway season here and I keep an eye out as I drive and do all in my power to help them, including -- when to get out of the car and nab the turtle out of the road would be foolish -- pray that the turtle will make it across. Young males migrate looking for their own territory. They can be teensy, adorable things not three inches across, or more valiant and mature.

Giddy-up, Snapper!

With this photo I will surely win the title of Miss Lawn Mower 2009 of Pacific, MO, hands down, no contest. Steve the handyman, and the new handyman, Tim, were out here this morning and taught me to use the riding mower and were game to take my photo. This was my first ride on a mower. To my surprise it is fun. I'm also surprisingly attractive. Who knows what's next, an ATV?

Crazy Like a Lawnmower, Part 2

Honestly, my dad didn’t sire a moron. It’s just that he never asked me or any of his other kids, all daughters, to do the mowing, nor did he show us how. He would have been ashamed, my mother says, for the neighbors to see teenage girls doing a man’s job.

Then I grew up and had landlords, and then a boyfriend. A true friend is one who will 1) mow your lawn and 2) help you move house.

Well, you learn something new every day, so I guessed my mower wouldn’t start in the middle of the grass because it WASN’T GETTING ENOUGH AIR in its CHOKE, and sure enough it started up roaring after it was back on the asphalt, and I felt like a genius. I knew about the CHOKE because 30 years ago I regularly drove a ’64 Chrysler that wouldn’t start unless I put my finger down its choke.

The Divine lawn has five sections, three of them sloped. Beginning the mowing on a slope was a mistake.

Certain bare patches were thick with dry oak leaves matted up like corrugated cardboard. Boldly mowing right through them spawned a ferocious dust storm. After several of those, the mower quit, and I guessed at once that I had abused its air filter. The filter sits on the top of the mower, in a closed and fitted black plastic case, and I still can’t see how air ever gets in there. But after securing a dime to unscrew its top I got mentally lost in the beauty of the coin, and in the many reasons why I admire FDR, and then in contemplating, really for the first time, the torch and plants on the coin’s reverse. Then I removed the top of the case and rinsed out the air filter. I left it to dry in the sun on top of the pumphouse and quit for the day.

A pow’ful ornery attack of hay fever laid me out flat the next day, and that’s why there aren’t any Rugged Rural Missouri blog entries between May 19 and June 2. My mowing ensemble had included sturdy shoes and protective eyewear (“eyewear”? What a word!) but not a breathing mask. God, how stupid I was two weeks ago compared to how smart I am today.

Crazy Like a Lawnmower, Part I

My power lawnmower is nothing unusual, 3.5 hp, except that it is too small to mow the whole acre of lawn grass. I am not unusual except that I am a U.S. citizen totally clueless about mowing a lawn.

Firstly I decided to mow only half the acre. Problem 50 percent solved. I put off the job as long as possible, hoping it might rain every day, or at least every other day. God obliged with the third-wettest spring in 130 years. Problem solved for all of April and half of May.

In mid-May I had four-inch grass and knee-high weeds full of ticks jumping from stem to stem like my lawn was their jungle gym. I knew that mowers used gasoline, but had no idea how much. I was a real pantywaist about pumping the gas into a 5-gallon can, terrified and flinching and doing it one drop at a time. But I muddled through, telling myself that the gas was probably more scared of me than I was of it.

Then in the driveway I had my first close-up look at the mower. What a relief to see that the machine had idiot graphics that showed where to put in the gas and oil. I did know how to prime the machine with three jabs at the red rubber button, and to yank that cable “straight from the shoulder, just like a baseball pitch only in reverse.” But it took a while to realize that I shouldn’t pull the lawnmower out into the center of the lawn and try to start it there.

Honestly and truly, my father did not sire a moron. . .