Mowing: Satisfying If You Can Get It Done!

On the Farm is a humor column I wrote in the late seventies and early 80’s for a local newspaper, the Fostoria Review-Times. I loved writing, and was home 24/7 with 3 small children so it was an outlet for me. I would write about children, our beginning forays into living in the country, any subject that struck me or that I could attempt to make funny. This is one of my weekly offerings.

Mowing: Satisfying If You Can Get It Done

Nothing gives one a feeling of accomplishment like gazing out over an expanse of freshly-cut grass, particularly if one if the guy t hat cut it.
Your lawn looks so tidy, the smell is so pleasant, and it’s so good to find your “Sea legs” after hours on a lumpy, bumpy riding mower.
I shouldn’t really blame the lumps and bumps on the mower. Since our house is on the edge of a ridge, the hills alone are uncomfortable to negotiate; add two (oops, make that three) active dogs who love to investigate underground smells and the result is our lumpy, bumpy, humpy, dumpy lawn.
Mowing our grass is no easy trick as most of our four acres is lawn. I like to start on the flatlands in case I haven’t time to finish. Usually Jim will take over, mastering the tricky hills and orchard (our own personal obstacle course).
It never fails that I run out of gas at the farthest point from the garage where the extra gasoline is kept. This means trudging all the way to the garage for the gas can, lugging the heavy thing across hill and dale, remembering the funnel, going back for it, pouring and spilling the gas and making another journey to return gas and paraphernalia before continuing with my cutting job.
Each week the path is strewn with sticks, stones, toys or wandering kids, necessitating a stop, disconnection of mower blades, hopping off and removing debris, (In case of children a few stern words and a dirty look is often sufficient.)
Of course these are the same children who were told hours before to go around the yard and gather up all sticks, stones, bricks and bones. And naturally their guileless faces show surprise when you confront them. An indignant, “I did!” or an innocent “Who, me?” are the most common replies.
I don’t believe there is another lawn in the state of Ohio which has the obstacles we do. Bushes, trees, rocks, fence posts, a stump, gas meter, chuck holes, old miscellaneous pipes, three different garden plots, a swing set, two piles of lumber and an old heavy iron strip sticking out of the ground. As time goes by, these obstacles will disappear, but do you know how hard it is to find time to do extra jobs when grass cutting takes the better part of a day?
The hills alone should have dissuaded us from buying the farm, but truly they were part of the charm and attractiveness of the property. You must pick your way very carefully, choosing the steeper grades for a down hill run and the gentler slopes to ride uphill. I have horrible visions of myself sliding downhill, picking up speed until the whole mower turns over with me underneath (very unlikely, but then, most of my visions are!).
I have learned that if I have problems of any kind with the mowing that they’re “my problems” as they invariably occur when Jim is away. If the tractor stalls it’s up to me to figure out whether it needs gas or whether the grass being cut is so thick the blades can’t keep up with the speed of the tractor. Once I picked up about five miles of wire around the shaft of the blades (both sides). I was certain it would be impossible to extract the debris without turning it over. Being alone, this was quite hopeless, but I worked, maneuvering it around as it stood. After about an hour, I was successful in removing the wire (all by myself!).
To further complicate our complement of problems, the mower, like most machines, has a “personality” f its own. Whenever we pass over a good bump, the lever engaging the cutting blades to the engine bounces off, and usually I’ll mow away ignorant of the fact. And lately old Nellibelle needs to be pumped up every time she is taken out. Quite obviously something is wrong with the left front tire, but until Mr. Fixit gets around to it, the old girl insists on fresh air.
I have suggested to my husband that we let the grass grow really high, then hire somebody to come cut and bale it for the horses. No good. I’ve also suggested a bigger garden, more trees, fencing in more for pasture or getting sheep; nothing cuts any ice, so here I am still stuck with the dangerous muscle-building, exhausting job that makes me feel good when it’s finished (in more ways than one!).

Auctions: A Favorite Saturday Pasttime

(This is a reprint from my 1976 column "On the Farm" which I wrote for the Fostoria Reveiw-Times)

 

Auctions:  A favorite Saturday Pastime 1976

            While wiping the kitchen windowsill the other day, I had to remove nine thousand tiny articles of miscellany that I had discovered in a box of goodies at an auction.  In fact almost every flat surface in the house is filled with objects collected from my favorite Saturday pastime, the country auction.

            Country auctions are an entertaining form of recreation for rural folk, and I, for one, thrive on them.  Every good capitalist loves the idea of a bargain and many people furnish their homes and properties with paraphernalia ranging from dining suites to wagon wheels.

            The most lucrative auction, for buy, seller and auctioneer, is the estate auction.  They seem to follow an established pattern that every attendee is familiar with.  First, you plan your departure time to arrive a good thirty minutes before they begin the auction.  This will give you time to register for your bid number and examine the goods.

            Now every aficionado will want to look, as will the experienced, knowledgeable connoisseur, and I am no exception (more in the first group than the second).  I carefully scrutinize each item of interest, remembering to gaze at the underside of each piece of china or glassware to check for origin, seek the copyright date in any publication, peek under furniture for identification, and thoroughly regard each item in a box of miscellany, deciding as I go along what my top bid will be.  Hah!  What I know about antiques you could place in a thimble (antique or modern one!), but I sure don’t want anybody to think I’m a greenhorn.  Of course, while checking anything out, I’m careful to keep my mouth shut.  If it’s possibly a good find, the fewer who know, the better, or more likely, I don’t want to get caught with my foot in my mouth by uttering something asinine.

            When the bidding starts, it is imperative to remain as close to the auctioneer as possible.  If I don’t, like as not, I’ll strike up a conversation with someone and miss out on a good piece of depression for fifty cents or a paperweight for a dollar.  I’m also very careful about making a move of any sort.  Once I winked at my husband across the crowd and found I’d bought a box of junk for a half dollar; worse yet, the guy standing next to my husband winked back!

            I’m often amazed at the lengths (in dollars) people will go to obtain a given item.  My friend and I marveled at a woman who paid $13 for a set of glasses depicting the men on the moon (certainly not antique), but she may have laughed at me for paying five dollars for a small kerosene lamp (I just thought it was pretty).

            Some items of current interest are sure to bring top dollar.  I never count on picking up a quilt or china cabinet or even an old (not too old though) bedroom outfit.  My best bargain was a fifty cent purchase including a fairly decent sideboard, a fixable library table, a too-far-gone drop leaf table and all the junk that’s  still on my windowsill.  (The sideboard now dominates the foyer, holding two old jars and my Wandering Jew plant.)

            When I attend an auction, I go with the idea that I’ll only spend money if I see something we need (right now it’s twin beds for our sons, as our three-year-old is still in the crib and the five-year-old is sleeping in the bed his daddy slept in as a boy).  Naturally I get carried away and squander several dollars on items of use but certainly not necessary this minute.

            Two weeks ago, Jim asked me to check out a corn sheller advertised as to be sold; well, when the farm implements started going, I paid close attention to the auctioneer as I didn’t know what a sheller was.  When he called a particular item a sheller, I bid and won it for three-fifth.  He later called something else a sheller and I was confused.  I began bidding, stopped and asked if that “the thing I just bought was a sheller,” causing much merriment to the farmers.  As it turned out I came home with a grinder that is so rusty the turning parts are frozen.  Jim says it will make a nice planter.

Pets Survive Family Vacation

[This blog is a reprinting of a humor column I wrote for the Fostoria Review-Times.  This was from 1978.]

                No one appreciates a camping vacation, including swimming, sunbathing and water skiing, more than me, but it’s wonderful to get back and see that everything survived my absence.

                I don’t mean the houseplants or the garden – I’m talking about my much-loved pets and other creatures.

                Each time during the week that the animals came to mind, I deliberately pushed away the thoughts.  After all, if I trust my babysitter with my kids, I shouldn’t fret about the animals as piled into the car for the homeward journey, my mind became more and more occupied with home.

                Was there a thunderstorm to frighten Candy, the house dog?  Did Oscar bite the hand that fed him?  Did puppy Shadow run away or did Lightning kitty tear up the upholstery?  Maybe we lost some hens when the henhouse door got opened.  Perhaps Jake or Blackie got loose or cut themselves while we were enjoying ourselves in the boat.

                The sight of our house and buildings all intact were heartening.  And then there were three dogs, tails working furiously.  I was the first one out of the car unchaining the dogs and greeting them.  Each dog checked us all out, making sure all five of us were back.  Then I trekked into the house to pick up Lightning and listen to her reassuring purr.

                Next I went out with my egg basket – back to the daily grind – and counted the hens as best I could.  No great welcome from the girls.

                But Blackie, our pony, trotted right up to greet me.  I had to walk over to our horse Jake, who was too buisy eating to be bothered with a hello.

                Now things were back to normal.  The dogs were in and out of the house as often as the door was opened.  The horses trotted over to the fence to meet me when I went to pick beans near them.  Candy barked at the washing machines when it was s pinning.  All three dogs settled in the nearest shade to watch me garden.  The chickens could be heard squawking in the coop as they went about their business and Lightning dashed through the back door to enjoy the sunshine.

                Surveying the premises, we found only two things amiss.  Jim had forgotten to empty a new bag of grain in the feed barrel so the horses didn’t get thweir ration.  And the horses had been playing shove down the fence between the stalls,” and almost did.  It needs repair.

                It seems so hard to get away when you have a menagerie to care for.  We don’t often travel very far or long.  We really enjoyed our vacation; now all we need is to find a campground that allows dogs, horses, cats and chickens,

                Wouldn’t that be ideal?

Racing to Keep Up With Garden!

                The season is quickly becoming a frantic race against time for the home canner and freezer, and that’s the category I joined since we moved to the country.

                If I let the garden go to clean house, the weeds have a field day, and the food rots on the plants.  So I tend to let the house go; now I can’t yell, “Close the door, were you born in a barn?” to the kids because the house looks it.

                I can’t remember the last time I took down cobwebs, and my kitchen cupboards are in a dizzy state.  I barely manage to keep up with dusting and vacuuming and the laundry piles up faster than I the spin dry on the washer.  I must keep pace with some things, like dishes, animals, and bathroom cleaning (also newspaper writing), but the garden comes second.

                It’s wonderful that we got a new freezer this year, but it’s rather unfortunate that Jim hasn’t installed a plug for it in the basement yet.  I’ve frozen 17 quarts of vegetables and fruit now.  With a turkey and a large container of ice cream, not to mention several cans of orange juice and the week’s bread ration, the freezer above the refrigerator is bursting at the seam.  Electrical work is way out of my line, so itr must wait until my live-in handyman can get around to it.

                I can’t complain that Jim was remiss in his household duties as the last few weeks have been hectic.  Besides the ever-ripening variety of produce, we’ve survived a wedding, vacation, moving Grandma from her house to Mom and Dad’s, and a seven day workweek for Jim.

                The other day two of my sisters (I have four) came to help in the garden.  We managed to fill our old trailer full of weeds and cleaned up a great bit of garden.  I pressed all the day’s pickings on them as I couldn’t put them anywhere anyway.  I tried to talk them into tackling the house next, but they declined.

                You’d think that if the freezer were operating, my troubles would be over.  No,’ I’ll always have something to complain about.  The beans.  I hate cleaning beans (but love eating them) more than anything.

                Since food preserving is not in Jim’s line, it’s me that has to cut off the tips and snap millions of the nasty things.  I you rub them the wrong way, it makes your teeth itch.  If you try to start blanching them too soon, you get behind on cleaning them.  It is a necessary evil though, if we want to eat this winter.

                I think I’ll just start some trouble tonight.  When Jim is ready for dinner, I’ll just refuse to serve it until my freezer is plugged in.  Maybe I’d better think of something different though:  he’s bigger than I am and even more stubborn too.  I might never have my freezer.

                Maybe I’ll try one of my infrequent (and not always successful) pleas in exchange for a working freezer?

Getting Into the Spirit of Christmas

[This is another of my columns from "On the Farm," which I wrote many years ago for the Fostoria Review-Times.]

GETTING IN THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS
Merry Christmas, Ho, Ho, Holy Toledo!
Only two more weeks till the big day and I haven’t yet found my Christmas spirit. I know I left it somewhere around here. It was flying high, wide and nauseous at Halloween when I started playing the Christmas music. But I lost it somewhere between Tom Turkey and the solid chunks of ice in the horse and chicken troughs.
What happened to the old days when you walked along slippery sidewalks with the snow falling lightly and the carols ringing from a faulty PA system? Or the days when a flannel nightgown cost $4.00 and a kid could buy three hankies for Daddy and still have change enough from his dollar for a half pound of French creams to enjoy on Christmas Eve? Where is that innocence which forty years ago prompted me to say, “Mama, guess what I got you for Christmas, but it isn’t an egg poacher!”
The past is gone forever, and now you push your way through crowded store aisles, waiting forty minutes to pay an astronomical amount for a shirt for Dad, but what the heck – it’s Christmas. And the grocery total is twice the usual as you stock up on dates, nuts, coconut and nonpareils, not to mention sugar, flour, butter and eggs.
In the progressive age, you have to traverse the entire area of the store to procure a box to put Dad’s shirt and Mom’s nightgown in, and you have to prove you bought it before the stingy merchants give it to you. And how about the price tag on the pack that the jolly red-suited man carries on his back?
Why won’t my spirit show its face when I listen to my primary school kids practice their carols for the PTO program? Instead, I lament that their voice quality is unfortunately the same as their parents’.
Or couldn’t it flag when I taste that most delicious flavor of Christmas, anticipation? No, the thoughts at the back of my mind push out the anticipation in favor of despairing at the chaos my living room will be all of Christmas Day and how can I plan the dinner so that everything is ready at the same time (I only have one oven).
Even the memories of that most magical time, Christmas Eve, when you walk out to go to church and there’s a special something in the air are dismissed from my mind when I ponder how to keep the kids’ church clothes out of their hands so they are fresh for church on Christmas.
In the meantime, there’s dollars of shopping, there’s dozens of cookies to bak and hours to spend closeted with the wrapping paper and scotch tape. It sounds like these tasks will only serve to depress my spirit even further.
Watch next week for Part II of the Christmas spirit: “How to Keep the Christmas Spirit” or “Even the Cookies in the Freezer Have Been Raided!”

Betty G., a Wonderful Woman

We said good-bye to an extraordinary woman today. Over 200 people at the funeral attested to this. Each person had a personal relationship with her, working, sharing, receiving, interacting with a woman whose loss will be felt by many.
Her life was well-lived and at 83 she more than deserves the reward we know she is enjoying in Heaven at this moment. She chose to be positive in all things for all the years we knew her. No matter the situation, she smiled and dealt with it with charity, helpfulness and action.
People knew her as mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend and child. She lived most of her life in one town. There was enough time between her college graduation and her marriage for her to experience the work world, but when she began to have children, she became a housewife and mother to 3 children, all now adults and contributing in society in several ways.
She took her place in society as a woman of the fifties, deferring all praise and accomplishments to her husband in public, raising well-behaved, active children, contributing time and talents to her church, where she remained a faithful member all her life. As an economist, entertaining was her forte. Lucky the friends and family who were invited to her table, because it was elegant, appropriate and delicious!
When her time was close, she contacted friends to announce her illness. She was unafraid, uncomplaining, not avoiding the finality of the outcome of her illness. In her heart and soul she knew she was going to be with God and while it may have been sad to her to leave her children and grandchildren behind, she knew she would see loved ones she had not seen in some time. Her cheerfulness, calm acceptance and deep faith enabled her to remain in the same giving, cheerful state she had displayed throughout her life. Rest in peace, Betty.

Trying This Out Again!

Now that I am actually retired, I want to spend some time writing, both for fun and profit! I've had about six months to adjust to retirement, and I am somewhat ready to get back in the game of work! To that end, I signed up to accompany a friend to iPad training next week, and have been approached about a possible class to teach later this spring.

I love writing humor, I would like to try children's books, both picture books and chapter books. I am a reading teacher by trade and would love to begin the Great American Novel (a couple of scenarios are floating around in my head right now!). I enjoy writing poetry (mostly the rhyming, structured kind) and a few years ago won the best poem among faculty/staff at my school (the prize was bookmarks and some candy, I believe). I will post one of my poems along the side of the page one of these days.

Outside my occupational interests, my husband and I are boaters on Lake Erie. Other activities I enjoy are reading (go figure), gardening, walking and computing. Please watch this spot to see how quickly I get going with my project!