Or, since I am reading fantasy novels these days (only one, but it’s relatively recent and top-of-mind), I could alternately title this The Undead Orchard of Nogglestead’s Revenge.
So I hit a stump two weeks ago, which bent the baffle on my mowing deck and one of the blades. It was the second stump I hit in recent weeks.
As it has become drier here in the Ozarks, which happens every August and September and sometimes even July, one of the mowings will turn the grass brown for the season no matter how much rain we get thereafter. So I’ve been delaying the cuttings. Which means a month or so back, I hit the more solid of the peach tree stumps in the front yard.
When a couple of pre-existing young maples lining the driveway were gutted by poor pruning leading to splits, I cut the maples down and replaced them with peach trees many years ago. I said that every year we learn a new way for peach trees to not produce: If the temperature drops to -10 degrees in the winter, they won’t blossom; a warm spell in early spring can cause them to blossom only to be deflowered by a cold snap later; if peaches grow, Japanese beetles come around. The one year when all the conditions were right, we got some very small peaches. Once. Well, I tried to properly prune one of the trees, and it died. The other one beside the driveway died as well, so it probably wasn’t me (and the one in the middle of the yard is half dead). Last year, I cut the two dead ones down for kindling (“You know what I grow in my orchard? Firewood.” is also a common quip).
So, as I said, a month or so ago, the penultimate mowing, I went over the more solid of the stumps in the front yard. The smaller I hit once or twice already and cut it below blade height, but I was still going around the big one. I’d meant to get out there with a pick/mattock to chop it up a bit, but I had not. So the mower grabbed the stump and pulled it out, trapping it under the mower deck. I tried circling the edge of the driveway to pull it out (perhaps damaging the mower deck in the process), but I had to jack the mower up almost a foot to work the new bit of kindling (big enough that maybe it’ll be a main feature although misshapen log) through the blades and then out the discharge.
This ultimate mowing, I had no more trouble with fruit tree stumps out front, but I hit the stump of the apple tree which toppled, but did not die, in a derecho in 2019. It had kinda lie in the back yard for those five years, sprouting some branches growing straight up but no blossoms. So I finally cut it down with a bow saw this winter, after the peach trees out front (it still lies atop the wood pile to be cut down to logs and broken into kindling). I’ve managed to mow around it all summer, but knicked it in the penultimate mowing and grabbed a hold of it this time, pulling much of its stump out. But the deck continued to make noise, so I brought it to the blacktop to check for something stuck under it, and I managed to cut my hand twice on the baffle discovering that the blade was hitting it.
Although my brother has now indicated this is an “easy fix” involving changing a bolt on the mower and hitting the baffle with a hammer a couple of times, I’ve already sent to mower to the local (and fairly close) shop to have them check the front wheels (the tires have trouble holding pressure, so I wonder if the wheels themselves are damaged and cannot make a good seal with the tubeless tires) and to adjust the steering bars so they do not overlap (a quick fix I could have made with spacers or by bending the bars, but my uncertainty and lack of historic success with small engines and equipment left me uneager to try).
And: It’s been two? almost three? weeks, and the grass has continued to grow. Scratch that: Some of the grass and other flora has continued to grow seedheads which make everything look untidy (except for the brown front grass, which I cut before I disabled the mower).
Ah, what to do? Last time we had an acquaintance starting out his lawn business do the deed, he charged us $300. Not eager to take on that expense, we demurred.
I have the small push mower that I used in Old Trees in the shed, where it’s sat for almost 20 years. I could try to clean the carb and replace the spark plug, I reckon. I think the fuel line might have been cracked as well. As I’m not sure about the availability of the parts locally and because I’m not very good with small engines, I’ve put this off as well. Perhaps that would be a good project for me to do sometime to, you know, get better with small engines. And maybe get my tiller started again. Ha, ha!
I also have a reel mower which was dull and had dry-rotting tires when I got it. Not likely given the state of the meadow.
So: I have taken the line trimmer to part of the interior back yard. I got about 20% of it with a round of battery charges. I think I will continue this course of action until I’m done with it or until the main mower comes back. The result is uneven but better than its overgrown state, and by pre-cutting, when I get the mower back, it will mulch this part of the yard better and not choke out. The rest of the yard? I might have to overlap the cut portion a bunch so that the uncut portion does not choke out the mower.
And, ah, have I used that extra space in the garage for other projects in the interim? Oh, but no. The last couple of weeks I have fallen back into the bad habit of sitting at my desk too much to too little end. And even writing long-winded blog posts count as an end.
Oh, the humanity. At least the cuts on my fingertip and palm have stopped bleeding and stopped hurting.
