Bent Blades

I got home from work Friday afternoon, changed clothes and got on my riding mower. It was one of those perfect evenings in between spring and summer, the fading sunlight highlights the dust hanging in the air like a golden mist. The beer in my cup holder is shaken into a fine froth from the vibrations of the spinning blades and bumpy terrain. A steady roar is muted through the ear goggles I wear and work week tension melts away with every lap around the orchard. WACHUNK! Engine dead, complete silence. Oh crap. Parking brake, kneeling, peering under the mower. I see a segment of a branch I had cut off an apple tree, about as thick as my wrist. The blade is bent all to hell. Defeated, deflated. I motor back into the garage and lift the mower up onto risers to check out the damage. The other blade is fine, motor still runs smooth. I reckon it was time for a new set of blades anyway.

The next day is Lamaze class at the Hickory Mall. I am the first dude who volunteers to wear the empathy belly, a thirty pound rubber and lead contraption designed to show men what it feels like to be pregnant. I am comfortable with the new girth. I would be a good fat man. When breaktime rolls around the instructor asks if I want to take it off, I say I'm fine and decide to walk through the mall with it on to get a cup of coffee with April. I had hoped for some awkward stares at my male pregnantness but I am dissappointed that a Zumba dance demonstration has captured everyone's attention. They make me take it off after break. At lunch, we have pretzel wrapped hot dogs that are supposed to be covered in fresh jalapenos like the sign in front of the booth. They do not look like the picture and taste like salt and old pickles. We go to the Sears to get two new blades, an air filter and a new oil filter for the mower. I opt for the high dollar deluxe blades that are supposedly 16% thicker. We'll see what the stumps and branches think about these when we get home. After lunch I feel like I am back in a boring high school class that will never end. At each break another couple dissappears from the class but April will not leave early despite my whining that this is ruining the entire weekend. Freedom, finally. It is almost six o'clock. We stop at Lowe's to get the last Moroccan light fixture in the tri-county area and some carnivorous plants that I hope will solve the fly problem in our house. When we get home I am pumped, ready to fix some mower and show April how virile and mechanical I am. I am unable to remove the bolt holding the bent blade on. My pumpedness and virility are in a nosedive. April brings me a beer and suggests I try to turn the bolt the other way. Victory is mine. I get both blades off and the two new blades fitted on and tightened up. April asks me if the blades are on tight. I assure her they are as tight as they're gonna get. I fire up the mower and feel a deep primal stirring in my loins as I roar out of the garage to show the grass what's up. The front lawn looks like an emerald carpet beneath my burgeoning apple and cherry trees. I am the orchard master and retire to the couch to check on my fantasy baseball teams and drink more beer. I notice a venus fly trap has partaken of the housefly population. Despite Lamaze class, it has been a most triumphant day.

Sunday. I awake eager to finish mowing around the chicken coop and the peach orchard on our back forty. We have granola and yogurt and grapefruit juice and I step outside. It is sweltering. I feel like I am wearing a spacesuit in a sauna but have on just shorts and a t-shirt. I am mowing around the chicken coop and the barn. There are thick gnarled oak tree roots rising 6 inches and higher out of the ground and I mow around them in a chaotic, swerving pattern. I listen to Bunny Wailer and Eek-a-Mouse and Sublime on my ipod. Some of the weeds that were knee high refuse to submit to the new blades and stay erect even after I mow them down from multiple directions. The mower blows grass clippings through the fence into the chicken enclosure and the older hens crowd out the younger chicks to greedily gobble them up. Underneath a cherry tree, in sweet cool shade. WACHUNK! Silence. Kneeling on the ground, looking underneath the mower. One blade has fallen off and wedged itself into the path of the other blade. It is bent all to hell. I can not find the bolt that held the blade on. I am sweating like a hog and feeling some strange combination of anger, depression and disgust. I pull back into the garage and lift the mower back onto the risers. I promise myself I will find the bolt after I take a break. I never do.

Sears Parts Direct wants twice the cost of the bolt for shipping. I waver back and forth before I finally pull the trigger and order two bolts. Just in case. That evening I walk out underneath the cherry tree. A thunderstorm and torrential downpour has soaked the ground and the grass is looking taller. The bolt is sitting there on top of a patch of red clay dirt. Mocking me.

April's dad comes over on Friday evening to help fix the mower. I suspect his true mission is to prevent his mechanically inclined son in law from maiming his daughter & granddaughter with a flying mower blade. I have two new blades, two new bolts & a new breaker bar from Sears to put some torque on those bad boys. In 5 minutes we are done and I am mowing test patterns around the grapes and rose bushes. I don't know what lesson I am supposed to have learned. All I know is that I still love mowing the damn grass into an emerald carpet.

Beach Week

just chillin'

handsome n' soggy

strawberry & shrimp ceviche

beach clyde!

catch me big dog

sun kissed

...and we came home this guy had eaten 13 chicks who had managed to squeeze through the links in the fence.