Ma and the Blustery Day of Mowing Tiredness

With the youngest four off on another Bible School morning extravaganza, Ma took to eating breakfast and schlooping around the Internet, grazing on fitful snatches of Facebook, news and weather. And speaking of the radar, I came across a huge green blob, with yellow and orange patches and....yes, a red ga-bloop, off to the west and north.

While snarfing power oatmeal, I carefully replayed the radar loop, gauging the possibility of rain destroying my chances of mowing.

It looked bad. As in, tracking just enough north to miss us, for a while at least, meaning I had to mow.

Finally, with no breaking news reports that required my attention, I had to face the sad fact that there was no excuse but to head out for more grass removal.

It was a hard start. I felt old and tired and began entertaining thoughts of keeling over and being found by a passerby who would tearfully intone at my funeral:

"I didn't know her, but I could tell from the straight lines on the lawn that she was a really---good---person!"

*sniff*

Well, we all have our little daydreams, don't we...

At first I was just hoping to get one third done before taking a break. No, maybe a fourth.

Then a few drops fell, a small breeze wafted in and I began to feel better. The light sprinkling gave me new energy and it wasn't long before I began to feel like Babe Didrikson.

Well, maybe more like Babe, the pig.

I was getting my second wind and bordering on spunky.

The nice thing about mowing in a very light sprinkle is that you never really notice when the increase comes. You get wet so gradually that before you know it, you're close to soaked but almost done with the lawn, so hey...who cares?

It took 2.5 hours but I finished, though not before running out of gas 4 strips from the end.

A warm bath and complete change of clothes, not to mention lunch, put me right in the mood for a nap.

I was just getting to that warm and comfy--the body has almost relaxed enough to sleep--stage, when I realized the breeze was gradually picking up to a gale. But the bed felt so delicious that I hesitated to get up, which I'm pretty sure is the same as lying still.

However, when I began to feel a certain weird, wobbly sensation, I checked back into the dark recesses of my computer-like mind and pulled up a vital piece of information: "Attention Ma...the second floor will start to shake when the wind reaches around 50 mph."

I got out of bed.

Turns out there were no weather alerts, so either nothing bad was going on or else the weather people decided, "It's only that sparsely populated section of Butler county...no biggie."

Later that afternoon, after snorking off 40 winks, I discovered a couple of casualties:

My large, 6-foot Hollyhock, which was growing smack in the middle of my herb garden...
...plumb broke off.

That's OK. It was shading the thyme and I just didn't have the heart to pull the big lug out, earlier.

Over on Mr. Lupkes' property, I spied a tree that had blown over and hung up on another...
...Kendra saw that it was going rotten at the bottom, contributing to it's demise, no doubt.

And at the base of that double trunk lay an expired, fledgling crow. Did you know that under-grown crows are bigger than robins?!

In the end, I am paying for my grass-cutting exuberance. The rest of the lawn may be completed--the last hour in light to moderate rain--but I've been a faded ray on the orb-of-oomph, ever since.

I'm sensing OTC painkillers and TV, before bed.
 

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