The Lawn Mower Day

Whew, what a day! Today was the last day of school locally, and thank goodness for that. The natives were restless throughout the land.

Everything started off normally, but towards the end of my morning work, I had to send my husband off to Chicago (to research some machinery). This involves syncing the iPod, unloading all the accumulated stuff in the trunk of the car and moving the car seat over to Ol'Blue (our antique GMC pickup)to keep things legal. Naturally, this puts me behind getting back to the school to pick-up DS. Upon arrival, the kids are running wild, as expected. I pick up the spare set of clothes, the day's papers, and his "journal" before an almost sappy goodbye from his teacher. She's gonna miss my little stinkbug this summer - even said to call her if we need a sitter!

Next, we head home in Ol'Blue. I'll have to tell you all more about Ol'Blue sometime. For now, let me just say its not a quiet ride. Now, DS has been looking forward to mowing the grass since dawn today, and we argue on the way home over the road noise about whether I'm going to eat lunch before getting out the mower. We compromise by getting drinks and snack crackers before heading back outside.
DS has a John Deere electric tractor, and follows me in that as I hike up the hill to the barn where the riding mower is stored. He stopped for some reason before reaching the top, so I went it alone through the electric fence that we haven't turned on in months.

I arrive at the metal barn and pull open the gate, scaring the horse who is grazing on the opposite side of the barn...more of a huge carport, really. And I sat on a riding mower for the first time in my life. Yeah, you read that right. I have never done this before. I fiddled and fiddled and finally figured out how to control the thing. Its a good thing DS wasn't nearby so I could concentrate on operations. Mechanics are not my thing! Starting it was no problem, but figuring out how to brake was another. Anyhow....

I start mowing, and really had a pretty good time! I had the foresight to wear sunscreen and a cap, but still got a bit burned. It took me quite a while to mow the lawn, sides of the driveway, and part of the way around the ponds. I got stuck a couple of times, but Reverse was my friend. DS followed me on his John Deere round and round until he got hot, then retreated to our wonderfully shady front porch with the puppies, where he screamed updates to me about the horse, who had walked right across where our electric fence should have been.

This horse, Domino, had a great time eating the freshly mowed grass all the way down the hill to the yard, and I just laughed when he started rolling on the lawn. Its not something one sees often! After he made it all around the house a time or two, he got bored and found the metal trash can where his feed is stored on the front porch. He picked up the top with his teeth and set it aside and helped himself to the 10% sweet feed inside! At this point, DS was beside himself, waving his arms and screaming at me, which of course I couldn't hear over the lawn mower.

But I could see the 1000 pound animal standing in the shade by the house, eating off my front porch, so I braked the mower and ran over to keep him from getting colic. Silly Domino acts like he knew this was coming, and accepted the lid replacement and halter calmly, while DS says "Domino's in biiiiiig trouble!!". :) I said "yes, I'll have to take him back up the hill" - and so I did. Then I put the fence back up.

By this time, I had to get DS inside to wind down for his nap...which took a while. He did finally go to sleep, so I finished mowing and put the mower back in the barn, showered and checked email before getting ready to leave for the evening.

My evening included Teen MOPS and a leadership meeting at church. Teen MOPS has been a disaster for 2 weeks now, and I don't know if tonight was better or not because everyone showed up AFTER I was supposed to be at my other meeting! I arrived by 5 and set up everything, and waited on the food to arrive from the Homemakers club, which it did at 5:15. I hung collages on the wall, played with DS, made up a House Rules poster, etc...and then it was 6, time for my other meeting. Now normally MOPS starts at 5:30..but the van with the teens wasn't there and neither was the woman in charge. They all arrived by 10 after and I high-tailed it out of there with DS to the church. I do hope things went smoothly after I left! It was my last meeting, since my classes start June 9th and I won't have the time to commit.

We got to the church during a video presentation, a few minutes before Pastor Dave began to speak. It was short - speech, prayer, offering - then we waited as they counted the $$. We were trying to raise funds for the budget shortfall, and made quite a dent! (This shortfall was due to the fact that this was the first school year run on a budget in recent history - which means it was total guess work this time around.)

After that, we headed home, but DS wanted to go to the park, so we spend 30 minutes running around, swinging and climbing, then finally made it home. Whew, what a day.