An Idiot’s Day

An idiotic plan goes awry, a run-away trailer, an excuse to buy new lawn equipment and I become a momentary lapsed Baptist.

Experience is a dear school,

And fools learn in no other –

Benjamin Franklin

                Have you ever had just one of those days where everything went right?

                Me neither, and this past Saturday was certainly not one of them.  Actually, this tale begins on Friday.

                For those of you unfamiliar with these tales, let me set the stage:  I live in a 1960’s ranch house in Philadelphia, MS, and I own a couple other pieces of property:  an 85 acre tree farm in two parcels: a 40-acre parcel nine miles south of town and a 45 acre tract five miles east of town in the Spring Creek Community and a 2 ½ acre lot about a mile north of the house. The Spring Creek property contains a small pond and a cabin, where we spend a good bit of time.  I plant woods roads, powerline right-of-ways and a small opening in rye grass, just in case the local deer desire a snack.  The fact that much of this is within a gunshot of a deer stand, where I spend hours with a loaded rifle in the winter, is immaterial.  I just have a tender heart and cannot stand the idea of my deer going hungry.

 I have a rather large garden on the 2 ½ acre lot.                A description of the lot is germane to this tale, so I proceed.  It is in an old pasture of a defunct dairy farm (40-60 acres).   The land is hilly, and the remnants of old farm terraces follow the contours.  On my lot, they are about 20 feet apart, with the land between fairly level.  I have five garden plots and a small orchard between the terraces. The developer allows a local farmer to cut hay from the undeveloped portions of the pasture.  He cuts much of my lot, but I mow my little orchard and around the garden plots and storage shed with a riding mower.

“All the above makes perfect sense,” you might say, but wait.  The idiocy begins: In spite of a cold, wet spring, I got my garden in, to a large extent, by starting seeds in my little greenhouse and transplanting to the garden. Knowing that hot, dry weather is not far off, I felt a need to mulch my plants, and thought about all that rye grass at the tree farm that is now knee high. If only that grass was cut and delivered to the garden! But it wasn’t. Being a lazy person, I sought an easy way to do it, and, being an idiot, I formulated a plan that seemed perfectly logical to me but was doomed to fail.

I would bush-hog the grass, pick it up with the lawn-sweep I pull behind my lawn mower, load it into my utility trailer and haul it to the garden.  What a plan!  Not bad for an idiot, I thought.

I hooked up the bush-hog to my trusty John Deere tractor and attacked the grass, cutting a little, but simply flailing most of it about, since the blades are seriously dull and I am too lazy to sharpen them.  Oh well, I figured, after a while, I have enough to rake.  I commenced to drive the lawn sweep through the half-cut-half-beaten-down hay.  It went about ten feet and started skidding; the wheels refused to turn.  I got off the lawn mower to take a look and quickly discovered that the long stalks of hay were wound about the mechanism, which was designed to pick up grass trimmings.  I got out my pocket knife and cut away the tangled mess and tried it again – with the same results; then again – still with the same results.  I thought about Einstein’s remark that insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results, so I proceeded to plan “B” – I raked the hay into piles with a garden rake, exchanged my bush-hog for the utility trailer and drove among the hay piles, getting up and down, up and down, repeatedly, from the tractor to load the trailer.

That accomplished, I had to get the mower and lawn sweep to the barn – but driving it back through the machinery-clogging hay did not seem like a good idea, so I unhitched the sweep from the mower and wrestled the heavy, ungainly thing on top of my hay. I drove the tractor and hay trailer back to the barn, walked back to the lawn mower, and drove it, too, to the barn.

I hitched the hay trailer to my truck, drove it to the garden, parked it on a level spot between terraces, unhooked and went back for my lawn mower, since I needed it to mow around the garden and my yard in town. The only trouble was, I usually haul my mower on the utility trailer, and it was sitting at the garden, full of hay. But wait, I thought, I have a 16-foot, twin-axle trailer I use to haul the tractor!  I can haul the lawn mower on that.  I hooked it to the truck, loaded the mower and delivered it to the garden. I parked it on a level spot (I thought), unhitched it from the truck and rested the tongue on a large wooden block to level it. It was now late Friday afternoon, this tired old body had about had it and I figured the fish would be biting now, and Paula must have supper on the stove. I left my equipment at the garden and drove back to the cabin, went fishing and caught four 10-pound bass and ate a lovely 16 oz. filet mignon Paula had cooked to perfection.  Just joking.  Actually I caught one bream about as big as two fingers and ate cold leftover Brussel’s sprouts.

Saturday’s weather forecast called for rain in the afternoon, so I arose early and got down to business.  A few weeds and grass had sprouted in the garden, so I deemed tilling, while the soil was still dry enough, to be top priority.  My tiller is stored in my garden shed, which is built on blocks about two feet high.

Now, in addition to being lazy and an idiot, I am cheap.  I buy a lot of stuff from a store that specializes in tools made in places like Forgotenstan and China.  A friend refers to it as “China Dock.” The aluminum ramps I use to access the shed with my wheeled tools came from there.  They were cheap.  The little hooks that are supposed to hold the ramps firmly to the door sill, or pick-up truck bed, are flimsy, but they always worked fine -- until Saturday.  As I was backing the tiller out of the shed, the hooks on the left ramp gave way and the tiller lurched dangerously to that side.  In an effort to keep it from turning over, I sprained my left wrist – my dominant hand: the one I eat with.  Oh, no!

Once the tiller was safely on the ground, I fired her up and went to work.  It was lovely.  The soil was just damp enough to work well.  The freshly churned soil behind the tiller looked like foam in a ship’s wake. I was having a grand time when, clunk, the right tine came off and the tiller fell to the ground on the shaft.  I struggled to keep the tiller from lurching to the right and plowing up that row, and, in the process, strained my right wrist – my back-up eating hand.  I’ll starve, I thought – until I devised a plan:  I’ll dive into my mashed potatoes head first and scarf them up like Randy in the movie A Christmas Story when he imitated the little piggies eating. Paula’s going to love that!

The tiller’s tines are held to the shaft by a ¼” by 1 ½”pin that passes through holes in the tine flange and tiller shaft, and is secured by a “hairpin” clip inserted through a hole in the end of the pin. The pin was missing.  Evidently the hairpin clip had vibrated out, allowing the pin to fall out of the hole.  With nothing to hold it in place, the tine fell off.  Naturally, I did not have a spare pin and clip.

I was determined to finish tilling, so I removed the pin from the tine on the other side to use for an example and headed for “Deals,” a salvage store that has all kinds of stuff – including pins, clips, etc. cheap.  Upon entering the store, I held up the sample pin to the counterman and asked, “Do you have a pin and clip like this?” “Nope,” he replied – “Got the clip but not the pin.”

I decided to try the nearby auto-parts store because I have seen pins there.  I showed the counterman my sample and asked if he had any like it.  “Yep,” he said, “right over here,” as he walked to a peg board displaying an assortment of little plastic bags of pins. He removed a three-pack from the hook and said “This is it.” There were no clips in the bag.  I asked about them and he answered, “We just sell pins, not clips.  You can get them at Deals,” so I headed back to buy some.

Having secured the necessary parts – plus two spares, I re-attached the tines and completed tilling without further ado, and began to tackle the mulching job. I removed the lawn sweep from atop the load of hay and placed it on the ground right next to my brand-new wheel barrow that I had only used one time and my push mower, then unloaded the hay and mulched my plants.  The results were beautiful – as only a well-groomed garden can be.

The only chore left was to mow the grass.  I have some long aluminum ramps I use to load my lawn mower on the trailer.  (They are good ramps – not “el-cheapos” from “China Dock.”)  I carefully attached them to the trailer, being sure they were exactly in line with the lawn mower wheels.  I did not want to have a repeat performance of the tiller incident. 

I mounted the mower, cranked her up and started backing down the ramps.  As the mower backed onto the ramp, a law of physics was enacted.  The weight of your humble cheap and lazy idiot plus the lawn mower created a see-saw effect and the tongue of the trailer lifted off the block – and started rolling!  I guess the ground was not as level as I thought, and, no, I did not chock the trailer wheels; I am an idiot, after all.

“Oh, my gosh, I have got to get off and stop this thing from rolling” I said to myself as I placed my left foot on the trailer floor. Just then the trailer rolled far enough that the ramps fell free.  The rear of the mower was now entirely unsupported, so, WHAM, it fell to the floor of the trailer – and onto my left foot, trapping me, as the trailer picked up speed and I dug my right heel into the ground to try to stop it – to no avail.  It just picked up speed, dragging me along -- the tongue with attached trailer hitch and jack leading the way like a battering ram and heading right for the front door or my garden shed.

“Oh,” uh “fiddlesticks” I said (we Baptists don’t cuss) as I jumped up and down on the trailer in an effort to steer it away from the shed.  I succeeded! I turned the trailer – right toward my push mower, lawn sweep and brand-new-only-used-once wheel barrow. It pushed the lawn mower aside, speared the lawn sweep and crushed it and the wheel barrow against the corner of the shed.  But, at least the run-away trailer had stopped.  I managed to lift the lawn mower just enough to extract my foot.  Fortunately, I was wearing steel-toed boots instead of my usual tennis shoes, so I escaped injury.

I tied a rope from my pick-up to the rear of the trailer and pulled it back to (sort of) level ground and PUT A CHOCK IN FRONT OF THE WHEELS,  then set about trying to disentangle the remains of the lawn sweep.  Easier said than done. The twisted frame of the sweep was so entangled in the trailer hitch and jack it was necessary to dis-assemble the sweep.  I tried to call Paula to bring some tools, but the battery of my cell phone was dead. 

I walked to a neighbor’s house and solicited his help.  He brought his tool box, and the two of us cleared the wreckage. 

I was determined to not be defeated, so I re-installed the ramps, unloaded the lawn mower and started mowing my grass.  Before I got through, a squall line moved through, blew all the mulch out of my garden, and the ensuing rain washed up two rows of beans The wet grass clogged up the discharge chute of my mower, so I shut her down and beat a hasty retreat for shelter, vowing to finish mowing as soon as the rain passed and the grass dried.

If anyone tells you gardening is boring, send them to me.

Epilogue

These absolutely true events happened on Saturday. The grass had dried out enough by Tuesday to finish my mowing.  I returned to the garden, inserted the key into the ignition, turned it and – nothing. I tried it again and – nothing.  Remembering Mr. Einstein’s statement, I took the obviously dead battery home and put it on the battery charger for two hours, returned it to the mower and installed it, turned the key to the “crank” position and – nothing.

I went to the auto-supply store, bought a new battery, took it to the garden to install it, dropped a nut into the grass and lost it, went to the house and got another nut, returned to the garden and installed the battery without further incident.

I climbed onto the seat, turned the key and – nothing. Oh, how I longed for the days when I was a Methodist so I could give this thing a good cussing!

I began to think about how to “trouble shoot.” Thinking that I had bought a bad battery, I held a piece of wire to one battery terminal and tapped the other end against the opposing terminal and sparks flew.  Good battery. “Humm, oh, yes:  The ‘dead-man’ switch,” I thought, knowing that it would prevent the mower from running unless someone was actually sitting in the seat.  I removed the seat, disconnected the wires, reconnected them, gave everything a good giggling, got back into the seat, turned the key and – nothing. That is when I saw it. As a safety feature to protect idiots like me, the mower will not crank when the blades are engaged.  Mine were engaged.  When I ran for shelter during Saturday’s rainstorm, I forgot to disengage the blades when I shut the mower down. I put my Baptist teachings aside, snarled and said, “You dirty low-down ignorant $#&*!,” referring to me, not the mower.

I finished mowing, installed the ramps on the trailer, started loading the mower and – no, I did not forget to chock the wheels – I loaded the mower with no problems.  What do you think I am?  An idiot?