Monday, April 25, 2011

Mowing, The Never Ending Saga

Tippy toeing around the mowing issue here.  I got on the mower a few days ago to get myself back in the hang of things. Flitter, I haven't ridden a lawn mower in 20 years. Watching me at the beginning would have been a hoot. It took about an hour to get the hang of it back. I got part of the back mowed and the worst of the front.

It's still awfully wet, with more storms predicted, but there were a few areas that really needed taking care of. Glad to have gotten those done. I'll be able to wait out the next few days of wet, hopefully, before becoming desperate to get back to it.  As long as I can put it off, I figure I can distract Joe from it.

As soon as I got off of it this afternoon, he wanted on it.  I said no and ran into house to the bathroom. I delayed and delayed and finally snuck out the front door and sat on the porch for a bit. He finally went back in the house. Whew. I took a bit of time to peel potatoes, etc., for supper, and wanted me to move my car out of the garage and put the mower in there. Sorry. Ain't gonna happen. Didn't say that, just thought it. Later I snuck around the back of the house to the garage and put more gas in it and moved it back to the workshop.

Wednesday Dad tried to talk to me about it. It had to do with the day before when Uncle came over to check it out after the last time Dad ran it into the ground and to coach me on using it. We talked to each other and not to Dad. From Dad's meanderings, I got that that upset him. But what came out of his mouth was that he thought we said his lawn mower wasn't any good.

On Saturday, Dad got on a tear about mowing. We had a round over it in the morning. I told him he's simply too frail to operate it, and we can't afford to keep fixing it. Of course this is pure junk. I didn't let the conversation last long. No use in it. In the afternoon I got outside and got the front mowed.

Out in the yard, he came up to me so I had to stop mowing. He wanted to know where I was keeping the key. I told him how very sorry I was that this was happening, that I knew it was upsetting, that we weren't keeping him from mowing just to be mean but to keep him from getting hurt. That seemed to actually be heard and understood. He just turned around and walked off picking up sticks. So I had to mow another section of the yard to avoid him being in the danger zone of thrown objects.

Then I had to make a beeline to the workshop because it started raining.  By the time I got the mower put up, the workshop closed up and back to the house, it was hailing.  Damn it came on quick. Well, it's a good thing I got the majority of the yard mowed because it's thunderstormed off and on since then with predictions for the same through Thursday.

Bardwell had roofs ripped off buildings, and the front of a building on US 51 came off Saturday. That might have happened when we had the hail in Arlington. There are flood warnings out. The west end of Arlington is on notice to evacuate. Paducah is readying to put the floodgates up. The river is expected to crest at the same levels of the flood of 1937. Cairo is expected to crest at record levels also.

Not surprisingly, the basement is leaking. Sigh.

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