On and off during a rocky 2018 (winter, spring, and early summer) I’ve posted about difficulties. I want other folks who’re getting shafted by life to know they’re not alone. Life ‘aint as pretty as folks make it look on their Facebook feeds y’all. For a few folks, seeing someone else in the shit gives them hope. (Or not, maybe I’m just a whiny little wuss. Hard to tell.)
All storms pass eventually and I’ve made some progress. Less than two weeks ago I was fretting over a lawn that hadn’t been mowed all year. (Literally not mowed since the snow melted! That’s an issue when a raggedy ass lawn is the only thing that separates you from the forest (and possibly forest fires). If you’re worried about Gaia like she’s perpetually on the fainting couch, remember that the same processes that make a bristlecone pine last centuries can be cranked into overdrive by kudzu. Nature doesn’t abhor a vacuum, she nukes it.)
Mechanically I was backsliding. My truck was acting like the Dodge it is, I’d broken my lawnmower (TWICE!) trying (and failing) to tame the lawn, and my motorcycle was still in “winter storage” (i.e. crammed next to the snowblower and grey with thick layers of dust). The seasonal “starting of the engines” had been derailed. I’d already jump started the mower (long enough to break it) but the bike was kaput and the ATV was limping. (Don’t give me crap about battery maintainers. I have a fleet of ’em but by spring everything is either weak or dead… sometimes including the humans.)
Now, less than two weeks later:
- The Dodge steers where you point it. (For now.)
- The lawnmower starts and runs. Plus I’ve repaired some redneck engineered upgrades which also broke. (I swore I’d posted the upgrades on my blog… but can’t find the link. Sorry.)
- The motorcycle is dusty but up and running. (All hail Honda!)
The lawn, which vexes me considerably, has passed through triage mowing and is in beginning stages of “nearly under control”. I’m going to win this race. I had to resort to extreme measures. By August, if it’s hot and dry enough, I’ll mow the ever lowing shit out of it in a deliberate bout of setback mowing. That said, it is an area that occupies about 2/3 the footprint of what was “mowed area” last year. Am I pissed that the lawn “shrank” as the forest started invading? Nah… maybe the part that’s running wild is sufficient to encourage a few rabbits? I’ll probably start prowling for unassembled rabbit stew in the fall. One more chance to explore the “why are do rabbits suck at staying alive in this location” conundrum.
I’m also making progress with PAWIRNEATT (Project About Which I’d Rather Not Elaborate At This Time). This is a non-essential hobby endeavor… which (in light of 2018) seems to have become the very epitome of essential. (As is fishing, which I still haven’t gotten to yet.)
Also, my dog is healthy! In fact, all the Curmudgeon Compound residents seem to be doing OK. A blessing I don’t take lightly.
Progress! There’s more but I’m too busy to write… and in fact the blog has taken it in the shorts on my list of priorities lately. Thus, no squirrels. Sorry folks, please don’t give up on me. I’m still faster than that Game of Thrones guy and he probably wasn’t spending his summers holding back entropy.
If the bike is runnung, all else is secondary. You don’t notice the yard needing mowing, or any of the other, when you’re miles away & screaming into the twisties. At least I certainly ain’t never.
I have a running bike, but not the one I want running. Got knocked back into my wheelchair for a couple of weeks, & now I’m behind on everything.
Funny you should mention it. I agree that a running motorcycle is all powerful. I had it on a trickle charger while I was doing other things. I had tools set out and measurements taken ready for the next step of the job when I thought “I wonder if that battery has enough charge to turn over?” I wandered over, just to check, with no other intentions. It turned, then caught, and all other thoughts went out of my mind. Five minutes later I was suited up and rolling. I told myself it was a shakeout ride to get fresh fuel in the tank and make sure everything was in working order but we all know it was the siren song of motorcycle.
Good luck with your health setback. Sometimes things suck and there’s nothing for it but to accept that you’re gonna wind up behind on your plans. (Obviously, I intended for my motorcycle to be running on the first safe day to ride and not months later… but the universe had other plans.) It happens to us all. In the immortal words of Red Green; “I’m pullin’ for ya’, we’re all in this together.”
All hail Honda!
I dunno which flavor you have, but I LURVES my 83 GL650i! Big enough for a long tour, small enough that it’s not a tank around town.
Something you might try…I kept my battery indoors over the winter, and not even hooked up to a maintainer. Fired the bike right up when I put it back in.
I have an 1100 Honda Shadow ACE. It does everything I’ve asked it to do and then some.
One winter I had a pile of batteries cluttering up the mudroom in the house. It kept them warm but it was a hassle. Maybe this winter I’ll build a rack and that would work better.
The husband mowed our lawn this past weekend—after weeks of us both ignoring the hawkweed and spotted knapweed and hoping that the weed district guy wouldn’t decide to stop and give us a lecture. It’s the thing I hate about summer where I live. Every damn thing happens at once and has to be dealt with simultaneously.
I’d love to be able to use my blog as a therapeutic outlet. It serves that purpose, sort of, as a place to park the stuff I want out of my brain, but I end up censoring myself more than I would like. Half my audience is related to me, a good chunk of them are my neighbors, and there are a fair number of mental health professionals represented there, too. My mother’s hair would curl if I swore on my blog. If I post that I’m feeling down about something, or couch it in less than extremely vague terms, I get e-mails suggesting I talk to my doctor about taking something. It seems like everyone just wants rainbows and unicorn farts, so that’s what they get. It’s refreshing to read about real life on someone else’s blog.
BTW, got me some 1792. I love the slow afterburn. The flavors are complex. Good stuff. Thanks.
That’s part of why my dog insists my blog remain anonymous; not because I’m engaged in sedition or mayhem, but so I have a freer hand in writing. I worry that sooner or later I’ll trigger some nitwit snowflake and that’ll be the end of my blog. So far folks have been amazingly kind in their comments. I treat my readers well and they reciprocate; almost like we’re all adults.
Also I dislike the idea that sorrow is something that should be treated. It’s not a broken arm. All lives well lived will have setbacks, misery, and sadness. Such is the nature of life. (Without it would blues music be any good?) Provided it’s natural (manageable and ephemeral) a little unhappiness is certainly not something one should blithely medicate away. (Though if it’s real depression there’s reason to take it seriously.) I tend to post setbacks along with accomplishments. A selfie of some fool (like me) standing on a peak is boring, the same fool diligently climbing the mountain is where the action happens. Facebook has naught but beautiful people grinning on mountaintops.
Enjoy the 1792, it’s a different kind of therapy.
While going through mu divorce, I was asked by the Occ Med doctor how I was. I said I was mildly depressed. He instantly offered “something” to treat it. I refused, thinking I’ll cope with it and move on. It’s called life.
I’ve had similar experience with doctors. It seems that the “medical system” isn’t good at differentiating depression (which is a real thing) from personal events which can and should make you feel unhappy (which is also a real thing). If you’re going through a divorce it is entirely reasonable to feel bad. It’s only time for medication if it hurts too deep for too long in an unhealthy way. Doctors ought to know that.
I trust that you rode out the storm and emerged on the other side in due time. Good call in not locking it in as a chemical issue.
Back when I had the House (of Dooom) one of the fun tasks was hack and slash mowing. If I could get the mower blades on it, it was dooooomed. Starting in spring I would go from Attack Jungle from Hell to somewhat nicely manicured grassy surface where one could actually walk in the yard, well, except where the Blackberries from HELL would spring up overnight, and the YellowJackets of Fiery Death would dig in next to the BBfH. All while wearing long pants and chainsaw chaps, longsleeve shirt, facemask (or convenient t-shirt when available) and a lady’s wide-brim garden hat. I think my neighbors thought the circus had come to town some days.
Hang a machete off the handle of the mower, shovel on top, rake on the side. Yay. Time for yard work. Yay.
Don’t miss it. Don’t miss it a bit. Especially the yellow jackets, the poison ivy, the strange shiny-waxy leaved horrors that would spring up, the friggin spider webs, the 2 day allergy attack…
Flamethrowers. An underused garden tool. Kill weeds and cook rabbits at the same time…
“Attack Jungle from Hell” is the best phrase I’ve heard all year! That’s exactly what it feels like.
Incidentally I have used controlled burns on my lawn. Literally choosing fire as a management tool. It didn’t’ work great but I had a lot of fun and I didn’t rake leaves that year. (Actually I never rake leaves, I just mow the shit out of em so they decompose under the snow. Which makes my mower very dirty but seems to work.)
I have a welded frame on my mower that is topped with tank of roundup with a pump. The damn pump broke but I’m working on it.
I am quite relieved to know I’m not the only SOB on these plains to suffer from the last winter. I don’t know what the heck happened, but summer is half over already and the Ferguson is still in three pieces from when I broke a shift fork end of April, the lawn looks like hell, the home improvements aren’t improvements yet, I’ve a car and a pickup to fix, and people are telling me to relax and take a vacation! Only a farmer or acreage owner knows the stress of trying to enjoy the lazy days of summer knowing the hard days of winter are only a couple of months away and we’re not yet prepared!
Yep. I know the feeling. The folks who opine about vacations sure as heck aren’t the ones that fix stuff when it breaks in mid-winter. Good luck.