Back Home by Chris Hardie
I’m not a superstitious person, but I sometimes wonder if someone has placed a curse on my power equipment.
Others may say it’s merely a hex – a short-term spell designed to teach me a lesson. But since I have many generations of slow-learning in my family from the farming side of the equation – perhaps it is indeed a curse that is a severe, long-lasting manipulation of fate.
The rational side of me says it’s merely bad luck and nothing more than the challenge of trying to keep equipment running. That made sense during my farming days when all of the equipment I used dated back to the days of the Jimmy Carter administration or before. That hand-drawn cultivator I used once to till the garden may date to the Ulysses Grant administration.
But what about newer equipment? Longtime readers of this column (you have my sympathy and they do have online therapy sessions these days) may remember last spring when my rototiller and riding mower broke down within a few days of each other. I fixed the tiller after ordering some parts and walked more than 28,000 steps one day when I had to use the backup walk-behind mower to cut most of the grass.
The riding mower needed a new starter – a little beyond my repair expertise coupled with time constraints. I’m not afraid to attempt repair jobs but I have to place some value upon my input energy, the amount of time it takes to figure it out and how long it takes to find the appropriate tool.
After the equipment rested for the winter, I had hoped a fresh start in the spring would bring better luck. That was not always the case with the farm’s corn planter, which worked when it was last used the previous spring and somehow broke down by itself over the summer, fall and winter.
The first time I used both the mower and the tiller they ran fine – with the exception of a large rock that I wedged into the tines of the tiller that caused it to seize up. The drive belt did not break, however, so once I removed the rock, I was back in business tilling the garden.
The second time around with the mower was not as lucky. My wife, Sherry, accidentally ran over a piece of wire – it possibly came from the remnants of a flag marker we planted in the ground to identify some very small saplings that we planted last year that have mostly died. The wire wound around the shaft of the right front tire and poked a hole in the tire, causing it to go flat and roll off the rim.
That tire has gone flat before and already had an innertube. I removed the tire and was able to air it up, but the inner tube had a steady leak. Unless I wanted to run after the mower with the air compressor it was pointless to put it back on without getting the tube replaced.
Thankfully most of the lawn had been mowed at that point, so the backup walk-behind mower only required about 10,000 steps. Walking is good exercise and if it’s good for the soul, I’m a few million steps short of my quota.
I then decided to mulch the potatoes we planted in the garden with some old hay but my vintage 1998 pickup – it seems like it was pretty new only a few years ago – also would not start. I suspect the problem relates to the solenoid. That’s also on the repair list.
So I located my wheelbarrow – which had a tire that was actually holding air – and wheeled a few loads of old hay bales to the garden.
The lawnmower tire was fixed a few days later for about $60 and I remounted it. The lawn was mowed without incident.
I’m not holding my breath.
It’s a long mowing season. The blades will soon need replacement.
Something else will break down.
I may not be farming, but it’s still a farm.
Chris Hardie spent more than 30 years as a reporter, editor
