I wrote a great blog post in my head. While I mowed the lawn last week. But did I write it down right away?
Uh no.
Take note: Take notes.
Anyway. We had to take the rider to the hospital. The farm machinery place. Where I saw two boxer-type dogs sitting oh so straight together in the passenger seat of a pickup, heads twin trained on the store door.
Take note: Take camera.
Everywhere.
Anyway. Dear husband left me to go to Dallas for three days and put me in charge of the lawn. We call it a lawn. But really, it’s just a field that we mow to look like a lawn. Except when we let it go so long, it looks more like the field it is. Maybe we could call it a yard.
It wasn’t totally our fault.
I mean I know I promised to take on more chores when I quit work. But then I got caught up in this writing thing.
And Dennis had this big test to study for. And then it rained. And then the rider died. Which ended up costing us $40 to find out the battery needed to be charged–even though our tester whatchamacallit showed otherwise.
So I had to do it. Mow, that is. And put some muscle into it. With the supposedly self-propelled thing that left me puffing and palpitating. If I let it go any longer, even until the rider came home, it would soon like like the side yard. Which we finally let go last year (or was it the year before?), and now we can barely walk through it to visit the neighbor’s sheep.
So now we only mow a couple acres instead of five.
It took me three days to do the front.
Start. Stop. Because I kept letting go of the wrong handle.
Start. Stall. Clean out the clogged grass.
Start. Stop. Get drink.
Start. Stop. Walk a mile (seemed like it) to get the gas can.
Had I been whipping around on the rider, I might have chewed up the vole and little frog, both of which managed to scamper and jump to safety.
(I still remember when my daughter ran over a bunny nest . She does, too. It was years before she mowed again. Trauma all around.)
So I managed to make some progress. As long as I kept at it. A little at a time. And felt the satisfaction of standing back and looking back to see where I had been and what I had accomplished.
And this thought struck me.
Life gets out of control sometimes. For lots of reasons. And sometimes we just gotta let some things go. And tackle what’s left. Even if we have to start and stop. Take a break. With an eye on the goal.
Because life is not a free ride. We need to walk it out. Propelled by something bigger than self.
I just came back in after riding my mower around and around with it’s wide 54″ cut. And I thank the Lord for the time it saves. Yet even with that.. there is much we are letting go wild this year because between weather and breakdowns things got out of hand.
This igves me more time to walk it out, and you so wisely said:
“We need to walk it out. Propelled by something bigger than self.”
Oh, a 54-inch cut. I’d love tooling around on one of those. Except I’d probably run into the trees.
We live on 2 acres. I used to love/hate mowing the grass. It took me two hours minimum to mow, but boy, did it give me time to think. I wasn’t writing then. Now, we have a yard guy. He does a much better job than I ever did, but sometimes I wonder what great stuff I could come up with while riding on that mower.
What’s a vole?
Also? Once I let the grass get too high and I hear this loud THUNK, THUNK, THUNK! Oh yeah…5 feet of snake in 3 pieces. That was pretty cool.
Great post and great analogy.
(The previous comment was brought to you in part by my raging ADD.)
Ewww. Ewww. Ewww.
Between your post and Katdish’s comment I’m remembering junior high, when my family moved from Minneapolis to the middle of Nowhere, South Dakota. They thought a little farm would be fun. Every day — rain, shine or raining grasshoppers — we each went out and mowed for one hour. With the John Deere push mower that worked fine on our little suburban lawn. Not so much on 20 acres.
I’m not sure we ever got all the way through it before the neighbor came and baled the chest high “lawn.”
And frogs shriek when they get skinned by a John Deere. If you were wondering.
Great post. I’m glad I have that Someone “bigger than self.” My stuff gets out of control too often.
Oh dear. You triggered a memory from high school biology when we were supposed to “pith” frogs to observe muscles twitch in salt water or something. What was the purpose of that? Anyway, I got in trouble because I cried when my frog shrieked.
Loved this picture. This is exactly how God speaks to me. Thanks for sharing this. 🙂
He’s in the small things, too. 🙂 Thanks for coming by.
Sandra, just toss several seed packets of wild flowers into the “lawn” and turn on your sprinkler. Viola! A field of flowers that never needs mowing. Or do like us, turn your horses out to eat it down and then forget that lawns need watering in hot climates and burn it to a crisp in under one week. No mowing for this girl.
Kathy, a vole is a nasty little mole-like varmint that my son and husband used to catch with this big stab-em-through vole/mole trap (I have photos if you are interested).
Anyone with a vole problem, of course if you live in town and have a side job of emptying ashtrays, you can stuff cigarette butts into their holes and drive them into the neighbor’s yard (someone did this to us when we lived in Smalltown, America). Or you can cram one end of the garden hose into a hole, turn it on full-force and watch for voles riding the waves as water shoots out of their many tunnels.
Is it okay to close with my normal closing when I just talked about ridding the world of varmints?
Blessings.
Just toss the packets? Hmmm. Hubby figured he’d have to have it “scratched up” first. That seemed like too much work. 😉
I’m not allowed to mow the lawn. I don’t do it “right.” And that’s just fine with me because I’ve been in the kitchen when the great lawn mower coughed up a rabbit or two, and when the leaf blower spewed out a baby mouse or three. Gross. And that’s all I have to say about that.
The analogy rocks. What a great ending!
Ewww.
I don’t know why that just reminded me of the two baby mice that fell out of the garage rafters onto my garage sale money table while I was making change.
Love this post, the words, phrasing, pauses and stops. And the ending – just great!
It reminds me of the summer after I bought my first, post-divorce house and had to mow the lawn. For the first time. In the Virginia heat.
When all was said and done, I laid on the only cool place I could find – the tile floor around the fireplace in the living room. After I finally caught my breath and the red left my face, I called my ex and thanked him for all the times he cut the grass while we were married.
Oh, Cheryl. You called and thanked your ex. That is so sweet.
Oh, I loved this… Okay, now I’m wondering… why did I miss this post? I read everything you write! I just don’t know why not this one?
Anyway, it rocks. And now I’m off to do some mowing. 🙂