About a week ago, the blade belt on the tractor broke just as The Squire finished the front lawn. He called and ordered a replacement, which arrived this morning. He and I both worked on getting the belt on the machine, which involved a lot of heavy lifting, pushing, pulling, and cursing. Remove the deck, fuss and fiddle with the various pulleys, get bolts through holes, insert pins, etc. Very hard on knuckles and knees.
So – after several hours of this business, we finally got the tractor in working order. The Squire hopped on and headed out to mow the back yard. He got about twenty feet, and the drive belt broke! We will draw a curtain over the scene that followed.
Many years ago, The Squire had my godson, Steven, help him with this job, and that young man suggested simply turning the mower on its side. Ah, if only that worked!
After dinner, I discovered I’d managed to get poison ivy on my feet. No idea how that happened. I can catch the darned stuff if the wind is in the right quarter, so I am pretty careful. A year or so back, I got rash on the back of my calf, which I finally figured out came from the cuff of my boots; apparently I had walked through a patch of poison ivy and the oil was still “active” several months later.
ADDENDUM
The above was written last night. I now have poison ivy all over my legs! I sleep on my back, with one leg or the other hooked under the opposite knee – think flamingos – and I seem to have spread the rash from my left foot to my right leg. Scratching it in my sleep didn’t help a bit! Lovely. Just lovely. I made up some aspirin and hand lotion and dabbed it on the spots, which killed the pain. I wanted to get a pedicure on Monday, but that’s out of the question, now.
thisendoftheswamp 