February 1 – “Lawn mower technician”

Yesterday brought us an interesting problem.  The clover and other weeds in our yard have gotten so high that our dachshund Heidi gets lost when she walks through it.  Not that she goes near the high part anyway.  I think she's afraid she will get lost.  I don't remember the clover in particular being this hearty during the winter last year.  One fog bank had already rolled through and burned off.  Another was hovering off the coast, waiting for its opportunity to pounce. But I decided to take a chance and drag out the lawn mower.    It's actually Josh's lawn mower.  He gave it to us several years ago when he decided to hire someone to take care of his yard in Arlington.  Of course that led to no end of grief for him from his two brothers.  It was bad enough that he hired it out, but they found out that the guy doing it had only one arm.  (Understand up front that the guy did an amazing job.  The yard always looked great).  But they teased him a lot about it anyway.  So I pulled Josh's lawn mower out.  Now the last few times I used it, it had been sputtering and complaining, whirring strongly, then fading to almost nothing.  It took longer than usual and required more gas, but I was able to finish out the mowing season without any maintenance.  I figured I would have to change the sparkplug or air filter or something in there, but I decided to wait until next season.  I just didn't expect next season to get here in January.     The problem was that I only had a brief window to accomplish the task if it was going to get done at all.  The massive blizzard of 2011 was speeding through the northern wastelands, and was expected to hit the island within a day, bringing bitter cold, harsh rain, and even the remote possibility of snow.  The snow thing would be unusual since we had some a few years ago, and snow usually occurs only once every fifteen years here.  But rain seemed a good bet, and anything under fifty degrees is definitely winter here, so I figured it had to be done.     It started easily enough, on the third or fourth pull.  And the sputtering and hesitation began as well.  I managed to get both the front and back yards done before it gave out completely.  I checked the gas level, and there was still some in there, so on a whim I decided to check out the blades, not that I expected to find anything I could do something out.  I don't even know what I expected to find at all.  But I tilted the mower over carefully and peered at the blades.  All looked fine at first, but then my gaze fell on the post that the blades spin around.  I suspect it has a name, but I don't know what it is.  And wrapped around the post was … something.  I thought it might be part of a palm branch or maybe a piece of rope.  I grabbed it and pulled, but it didn't come right off.  It was knotted up.  So I propped the machine up a little better so I could get both hands free to work on it.  I hadn't had a challenge like this since the last time I had a backlash in my fishing reel.  It took awhile, but I finally freed the knot and unwound the offending culprit.  It was a strip of pantyhose.  Not the whole thing, thank goodness.  Just about a twelve inch strip of nylon or whatever they are made out of.  That couldn't have been good for the free spinning of the blades.  I shoved it in my pocket to show Chris later, and out of curiosity started up the mower again.  It jumped to life, spewing smoke everywhere.  The engine sounded totally different, though.  It was running great.  No problem.  The smoke soon cleared, and the old mower had a new lease on life.  And I had the opportunity to tell Chris I fixed it.  I'm quite the handyman, you know.   Psalms 27:1 says, "The Lord is my light and my salvation — whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of my life — of whom shall I be afraid?"   Father, thank you for reminding me that you are all I need.  Amen.