Last week MacTroll mowed the lawn. I'm not sure what happened, but apparently he got into a fight with our steel mailbox and ripped the safety cover off of the mower. Since they make those covers plastic now it couldn't be repaired and our decade old mower wasn't easy to find replacement covers for. So MacTroll "fixed" it.
Similar to the time in college when he decided he could put off spending money on a new exhaust pipe and muffler, MacTroll's "fixing" went directly to tape. In college, he used duct tape. With the mower, he decided to use packing tape. So when I went out at 10:15 a.m. to mow, I saw the fix sighed and primed the engine. I got 8 passes before -- you guessed it -- the tape fell off and exposed the blades.
At which point, I pushed the mower into the garage and sent MacTroll out to do his favorite kind of fixing -- buying something new. He asked if I had any requests, and I said that the mower could not be self-propelled. Apparently, asking for a mower that you still REALLY have to push is a bit like asking for a cellphone without a camera or a keyboard. They don't really exist.
MacTroll came back with the one mower he could find, prepared it and then set off and finished the front and back yards. I continued to weed and mulch until, around 2 p.m., I wore holes through the fingers of the garden gloves I bought in May. Then, X-man and I headed to Wally Mart to pick up some annuals to fill in where all the dead tulips we just pulled used to reside. X-man helped me dig the holes to plant the flowers and then he watered them (his favorite part).
After we were all done, we played a couple innings of baseball in the backyard. Riley managed to come out a couple of times to supervise the yard work from the shade before he went back inside to snooze. We got a couple tail wags out of him today, and he ate some treats.
Now I'm lying in bed and I can totally feel the sunburn on my shoulders (Oops, probably should have reapplied the sunblock.) I'm about to wander into the shower. Tonight after dinner (I'm making scallops with bacon and spinach) I'm going to go for a run in my new shoes and over the counter inserts to see how my foot feels.
Then I need to clean up the freaking inside of my house. How lame is that? Six hours of housework and there's still the whole inside left to go...
2 comments:
I totally feel you! I'm refinishing a couple of tables and I spent ALL day outside working on them and the inside of my house is absolutely trashed. Tomorrow is another day of table finishing and then I have to clean this pit.
Went to Awesome Machines and I specifically said "I want a mower that is *NOT* self-propelled". They sales guy showed me two and each time I pushed it around and I asked what the resistance was. Whatdoyaknow, it is self-propelled! Wow, that guy was a brainiac. We finally found one model that you have actually have to push. I bought it.
Speaking of duct-tape fixes, I photographed a patch job some HVAC contractors did on our house to "fix" a impaled sheet-metal vent. If duct-tape is so awesome, then why have sheet-metal? Why not just use duct tape for the entire ventilation system? Makes you wonder.
Good weather to be outside these days. :)
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