Lawn Mower Blues

Mom's Day at Our House

My gift to my mother was a nicely mown lawn this Mother's Day Sunday.  This may seem simple - no brainer - what is there to mowing a lawn??  Well, this being my life, nothing was simple.

A couple of years ago my brother bought a used riding mower, 1970's vintage, because it was a "special" edition of a lawn tractor.  It was pretty cool, had a hydrostatic transmission and hydraulic mower deck.  But it was pretty old, and took almost as much oil to run it as gasoline.  Last week it took a dump, as in throwing a rod.  My brother, who had been using this to mow the lawn, decided to sell it instead of putting more money into it.  Since repairing it would have been a chunk of change and my change is limited, I was glad he was throwing in the towel and cashing out.  He was able to sell it after just a few days of advertising it.  Guess it really was a special edition to sell so quickly without a working engine.

That left me with a dilemma of what to do to mow the three or more acres of lawn I have.  The next door neighbor was mowing it, but when my brother bought his tractor that arrangement stopped.  Buying a new riding lawn mower was out of the question - very costly.  Finding a used mower in good shape at a decent price at the beginning of summer mowing season is hard to do.  My brother is trying to get things together to start his own establishment, so I needed something I could drive and maintain.

Although I work with healthcare and computers now, long long ago I helped with the family farm implement business.  We sold mowers and parts for mowers, so I know a little something about what to look for.  I saw an auction this Saturday (yeah, BEFORE Mother's day) with an older riding mower that is a good brand.  I had to stand most of the day Saturday to wait for the mower to sell.  Men were hovering around it, inspecting it, giving it the once over. 

I was familiar with the going price on Craigslist thanks to my brother's research.  There was another unadvertised mower at the auction that was a much better mower and even more men hovered around it.  They ignored the dishes and tons of Christmas decorations that took hours to sell.  I waited and waited, bought a couple of sombreros that I have since given away, and FINALLY it was time for the mower I was interested in to sell.  About six men bid on it.  I waited until the bidding was pretty well over, and upped the bid once and BINGO got the mower.  I think if the more expensive mower had sold first I might not have been able to afford the mower I bought, because I could see the guys thinking - if I pay THAT for the older mower, then I won't be able to buy the newer mower.  Thank heavens I was content with the older mower.  I didn't have to check it out mechanically, because surely SIX men had already figured out that it worked.

Now I had the mower purchased, I had to get it home.  My older brother came to the rescue and we managed to drive it right into the bed of his pickup and get it home.  WooHoo!!  Then I had to buy gas.  Ouch!!!  I then mowed yesterday and today, with my neighbor coming over and giving me pointers on how to run the dang thing.  Thank heavens for people with real volume mowing experience.  I got the knee high grass mown and have quite the sunburn going on.  I will have a true farmer's tan on my arms.  I think it took about 12 hours to mow the lawn. And that is without doing the trimming yet. Big sigh.

I did mow part of my other neighbor's yard in addition to my own.  The older gentleman who lives there with his wife recently had knee replacement surgery, but he waited so long his muscles had atrophied so he is still unable to walk several months later.  His wife is hemiplegic and unable to mow the lawn, so one neighbor is taking the far half, and this week I took the close half.  I got it done just before their children got there for Mother's Day.

My brothers cooked supper for Mom, and my sister and one of my brother's bought her big bunches of penny candy, a lot of it from Mom's childhood, and some of it her old favorites like Snicker bars.  I'm pretty stoved up from two days of standing and driving and burning, but Mom loves a tidy lawn so it was worth it.  Now I just have to try to maintain it.  Argh!!!

I go tomorrow for my pre-procedure testing, to make sure I can endure general anesthesia for the bladder/kidney test thingy.  I am totally bummed because my car is even worse this weekend than last week. My brother is going to drive me in his pickup, and then take me to work and pick me up later.  I don't know what I am going to do on the transportation front.  I live three miles from town, so I'm going to have to do something fairly quickly.  Argh x2!!!

Hoping you all had a pleasant weekend.  The weather was lovely for getting a sunburn here - slightly hazy at a high altitude and a cool breeze.  Got my annual May sunburn going on big time.  Guess maybe Dr. Skinner will have to check me for even more sun damage next year! 

Mowing Makes The Grass Shorter

Wish I Had a Smaller Yard

For many years we hired our next door neighbor to mow the lawn.  Last year my brother wanted to save us the money we paid for this, and bought a lawn tractor and vowed to mow our lawn, which was quite sweet of him.  We did fine last year but it is not working out very well this year.  Stubbornly I have been trying to mow my three acre yard with an electric push mower.  That is not working so well either.

What to do?  My brother is trying the best he can to assist, but the lawn tractor he bought is old, and my wacky problem with The Legs is not conducive to driving the thing safely.  I may try to run it tomorrow as I have mowed about an acre today, that leaves two to go.  When he runs it, it makes his pre-existing back problem worse, so I become consumed with guilt just to have a decent looking yard.

On top of everything, my central air is not working.  I have a unit in my sunroom that works, and a whole-house fan that I can use to cool the house at night, but without the central air in the daytime it gets mighty muggy down here in old Missouri.  Getting competent people to work on AC in my rural area is hard to do but I have someone's name who was recommended by a friend, so will try next week to call him.  Holiday weekends are bad times to have equipment failures!

Tonight I am hot, tired, sweaty and The Legs and The Headache are protesting.  But in front of the house the lawn is almost perfect, and I almost have the front portion of the side yard complete.  This means I can look out the front windows and pretend the entire yard looks like this!  Maybe I should just do this, live in story book perfect yard land  just in my head, and never look out of any of the other windows again!

The main problem with tall grass in this section of the country is copperheads.  These are silent snakes of the cottonmouth variety, and do not have rattles to warn you one is near.  We have found them in tall grass near my driveway, just behind the garden, and in the utility sheds.  I have a desire to have a copperheadless yard, where anyone can walk without fear of venomous snakes, so a well groomed yard is a necessity not a whim.

The flexeril Doctor SassyPants prescribed is not doing too well for The Legs and the nerve pain.  I am trying to give it time, but may ask if I can increase the dose next week.  Very difficult nights lately.  One of these days I will catch up on sleep!  I may pack my skanky old head in ice pretty soon, and see if I can lull The Headache into thinking everything is just fine!

I wish I could have one three day weekend where everything went perfectly.   My family seems to decide to have all its crisis days on my days off.  I don't know how we manage to time it so perfectly, but it certainly makes life interesting.

I almost forgot - I rescued a lost brown dachshund today at WallyWorld.  An older lady came up to me while I was putting groceries in the trunk of my car (I am one of those people that strangers tell their life stories to, so I am used to being approached by people I don't know) and asked if I could help the little dog she had seen running through the HUGE parking lot.  I drove my car over to where the little dog was last seen by the lady, and there he was.  As soon as I approached, he ran into the propane tank business next to WallyWorld.  It took me about 45 minutes but I persuaded him to come to me by jangling my keys and promising we would take a ride.  He certainly knew what that meant.  Luckily he had a collar with tags on it. 

His name was "Oscar" and there was a phone number on it.  Nobody was home and her voice mail was full, so I brought Oscar to my house for a visit, and found another phone number for Oscar's owner.  I left a message, and about 3o minutes later she called.  I found out how to get to her house, and drove Oscar back home. His momma owner was a little younger than my mom (probably in her 70's) and Oscar had managed to crawl out her slightly opened car window while he waited in the car for her to finish shopping at WallyWorld.  Oscar was soooo happy to see her he hopped out of the car right into her arms and then pee'd on her!  A happy ending for everyone, except her white blouse - eeck.

Copperhead Bitten Beanie

Triumphant Weekend Otherwise

My brother's Boston terrier Beanie got bitten Saturday by a venemous copperhead snake.  When it first happened my brother thought perhaps Beanie had sprained his shoulder as he would not walk on his left front leg.  I had had a dog bitten by a copperhead many years before and was suspicious of a snake bite right away, but my brother was sure he had hurt his leg.  Being Saturday afternoon, our local vet was not in, so we took him to the nearest emergency vet about 35 miles away.  About five minutes into the ride, my brother said "Beanie's foot is swelling, and I think I see fang marks and venom is seeping out".  Definitely a snake bite, and since we kill three or four copperheads a year in my yard we knew what kind it was.

As luck would have it, I carry Benedryl (the wonder drug) with me everywhere because of my numerous allergic reactions, and how we had treated the dog years ago had been aspirin and benedryl (per the vet's instructions) so we gave him 25 mg. of Benedryl.  Almost immediately the swelling stopped getting worse (poor Beanie's foot was about twice the size it should have been) and Beanie seemed to be in less pain, and a little sleepy (a good side effect of Benedryl).

We get to the emergency vet, and he says (confirming what my vet said years ago) that dogs are hard to kill with snake bites.  Benedryl would have been given, but since we had already given that they were able to skip that step, and give him prednisone, antibiotics (because snake mouths are NASTY dirty), and some pain killers.  Poor Beanie was really really stoned but in no pain the rest of the evening.  Today his foot was much smaller and he was able to walk on it.  The meds will need to be continued the next few days, but Beanie is a very reluctant pill taker, so administering the pills is a challenge.  He's out here on the couch sitting near me wanting my sympathy while everyone else is asleep.  I'll sing him his sleepy song soon to help him go beddy bye.

Other than the Beanie crisis, I have had a pretty good weekend.  I have push mowed part of my lawn, weed eaten part of the lawn, cooked and shopped for groceries - on top  of working about a 60 hour week last week and traveling.  The Headache is trying to pitch a fit this evening, but hadn't had a peep out of it for the last two days, even with all the exercise.  Woo Hoo!!!  Hoping I have finally whooped some of the problem excercising out of The Headache.  Maybe I can start swimming again this summer or walking in the evenings?

The Legs are not so happy, but their pain is nothing compared to The Headache so I'll take a little bad with the good, no problem.  I see the physiatrists tomorrow morning, so will see what they have to say about The Legs.  My PCP thinks they will be able to do facet blocks to help me, I am not so sure myself.  Some of these have to be guided by contrast enhanced flouroscopes or CT scans, so no go on that for me.  No contrast unless life or death - the anaphylatoid reactions are just too scary for me.

Am somewhat worried about The Cleveland Clinic, as I am supposed to keep the stinky palm pilot headache diary one more month for the conclusion of the study, which should be soon, but I have not heard from them.  I will try and contact the study coordinator tomorrow as I am about so booked up with travel the next few months I won't be able to have any free time to go to Cleveland!

I am going to try to switch immunologists from Kansas City to a local group.  After my local immunologist died a couple of years ago there was no one locally to go to, but they have finally recruited someone to the area.  I thought I would give him a try because while I have great doctors in Kansas City, the drive is becoming harder and harder for me to do because of The Legs.  I have an appointment locally on June 15th.  They were able to put me in as an established patient because I had been seeing the old immunologist.  Whew!  Otherwise it would have been about a year wait for an appointment, which was almost how long I had to wait for the first Kansas City appointment.

My sister was a sweetheart and loaned me many miles of extension cords to help me with my mowing/weedeating extravaganza.  I have an electric pushmower and a light weight electric weed eater.  My brother assisted by doing the majority of the mowing with his lawn tractor, but I did the portion in front of the house and one of the side yards.  I think I have somehow gotten exposed to poison ivy or I'm allergic to something because I have little tiny spots of intensely itching lumps all up and down my legs, on my face, in my hair, down my arms, on my fingers, and down my back.  Sigh.  I did get a little sun without getting a sun burn which is a major accomplishment for me.  I generally burn all summer long!

Travelling again Tuesday and Wednesday, planning on being back Thursday.  Will be traveling the last part of June/early July to yet another client's, but hoping that the next install the new trainer will have enough training under her belt to strike out on her own!  She has been great, a real asset to the install team, I'm so glad she is with us.