By G. E. Shuman
Last spring, I bought a new, lightweight, electric lawn
mower. Didn’t everyone? I did this, not entirely or even partially because I preferred
electric ‘things,’ but because my older gas powered one was getting a bit hard
to push up the hill in front of our home. It was just showing its age a bit and
wasn’t fully helping me when I wanted to mow, I thought. I reasoned that my
mower was, after all, a bit older, and that the wheels, the ‘moving parts’ of
the thing, were probably starting to fail in the realm of cooperation with the
person doing the mowing. So… okay.
Axels of inexpensive and even not so inexpensive wheel
assemblies just get rusty; I have always suspected. What I knew for sure was
that for the past few years it was definitely taking me longer to get the lawn
mowed than it used to. I was spending more time mowing and also more money on
gas for the mower, and so I put the blame squarely on the gas motor and the present
administration. Unfortunately, after discussing this with my wife, it was
ultimately reasoned, here at the Shuman home, that perhaps it was more the lawn
mower than the lawnmower that was getting rusty.
When this awfully rainy summer began, I was totally okay with
it. “Oh no,” I would say on a rainy day when I had planned to mow the lawn. Yes,
I do have that new lightweight mower, but it rained all day yesterday, so, even
though the sun is out today, I have to let the lawn dry a bit before I try to
mow it. Remember, I would subconsciously say to me and Lorna, the mower is electric,
and I don’t want to take the risk of electrocuting myself.
And so, our unusual weather has continued throughout the summer,
throughout Vermont. I have mowed the lawn a few times, but really don’t care at
all if that new lightweight lawnmower rests the rest of this year. I do intend
to do the same.
By the way, I have not experienced many recent summers when
some person or other has not come up to me and extolled the fact that, even if
we have just been drenched from heaven, “We need the rain, we really do.” This
summer I haven’t heard that admonition once.
Have a wonderful and (hopefully dry) end of summer. The rain
should stop soon. It will definitely prevent me from raking the soon-falling leaves…
At least I think it will.
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