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.
Axles 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 lawn mower 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 lawn mower 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.