The Good, The Bad, & The Evil

Tuesday evening the lawn mower kept sputtering and quitting on me. I know nothing about lawn mowers at all! It had gas. So I checked the oil. The oil was really low! Last night I put oil in it. I thought it must have been really low because it took the whole quart.

I pulled the cord and the mower started...then white smoke started billowing out of it and oil was leaking from something on the side...I know nothing about mowers, but that didn't seem healthy for a mower to be doing, in my opinion! So I shut it off.

It seems that lawn mowers don't take a whole quart of oil! I found that out after I called my brother-in-law, well I guess he won't be my brother-in-law any more. But any way I called Daniel and told him what I did and what happened. He said he would come look at it. There was no fill line or instructions on the mower! How was I supposed to know?

It didn't seem wrong, I mean a car takes way more. So in size comparison between a car and a mower, one quart seems ok. And it never over flowed! I poured it down the tube and it never even filled up into the tube, it just all disappeared into the mower! So I didn't think anything was wrong, it didn't seem to be too much!

So more tears of frustration! I suppose you live and learn! Lesson learned! But there should really be a manual of some kind for women who aren't familiar with mechanical things such as a lawn mower! Just a basic how not to screw things up guide...like don't put a whole quart of oil in a mower!

Since I couldn't mow, I decided to start clipping down some of the vines and trees and such that had over grown along the fence.

I have narrowed vines into three categories! Forget the whole binomial system of classification! I have my own!

1. Good Vines - good vines are any vine that will not hurt me! These do not have thorns of any size or kind. So I can safely grab them and not yank my hand back in pain!

2. Bad Vines - bad vines are any vine that will hurt me! These have thorns on them.. If I grab them, I will yank my hand back in pain! And sometimes the thorns remain stuck in my hand and I have to pull them out! The vines are bad all around because the tiny thorns are everywhere and you can not safely grab them to pull them away without wearing gloves! You can pull it from the ground if you grab it at it's base.

3. Evil Vines - evil vines are the thick green vines that grow straight up and have huge thorns. These vines have the potential to cause serious injury! If I grab one, I will yank back a bloody mess! There is a pro to this vine. The thorns are spaced far enough apart that I can safely grab said vine and remove it without injury!

It was hard to decide between the bad and the evil vines because of the size and spacing of the thorns. The evil vines don't seem as bad because their thorns are spaced so far apart when compared to the bad vines. The bad vines have tiny thorns EVERYWHERE! The spacing is practically non-existent, it is not possible for a human to place their fingers between two thorns for removal! What ultimately made the decision for me is that the bad vines will not cause you to bleed to death if they poke you! The evil vines will!

While clipping at the vines that were everywhere, they were falling to the ground. I was wearing short shorts and flip flops. I somehow managed to get tangled in an evil vine. I stepped away from the area I was clipping to grab the rake so that I could rake away the fallen debris. The evil vine caught me and I tripped trying to get free. By the time I got away I had a sliced and bloody toe and a puncture wound in my calf that was bleeding as well! I now see why people wear pants and boots while doing yard work! That will be another lesson I will not learn because it is just too hot for pants and boots! Plus I need to be getting my tan on!

Cade was his usual Louis and Clark expeditionary self! He likes to explore and refuses to stay and play around me! So every two minutes I was dropping my tools to bring him back! It was tons of fun!

Oh and lets not forget the mosquitoes! They are one of the best things about living in the south! Mosquitoes bite you and leave behind red bumps that then itch! So we humans use bug spray! My OFF, didn't keep them off of me! I'm not sure why! I sprayed Cade down with it and they stayed off of him. Except I didn't put any on his face! I misted it over the top of his head, but normally I spray some into my hands and spread it over his face. I didn't think to do that this time. So of course the mosquitoes got him around his forehead and temples! But no where else!

Science and PE all rolled into one on yet another adventure in Jumanji land! Thank God the mosquitoes aren't big enough to kill us, because they were in Jumanji!