Oops!

One of the chores I enjoy is mowing.  I don't know why I like it.  Maybe it is because I can see the results immediately.  Unfortunately, the riding mower was in the shop for 3 weeks earlier this spring and the grass really got ahead of us.  There are large areas that we only mow a couple of times a year, but we try to keep the area around the house and garden mowed pretty well. These areas had gotten terribly overgrown while the mower was broke.  

Tom is swamped this time of year and I decided to help by mowing around the garden.  In one place the Johnson grass was really tall.  You can read about how much I hate Johnson Grass in my blog entry about "Devil Grass":   

http://windyacresnaturalfarm.blogspot.com/2010/04/devil-grass.html

Before I knew it, I ran over some of Tom's drip tape that was lurking in the weeds and the mower sucked it up and it wound around one of the blade spindles! 

Drip tape is this plastic hose-like stuff that has tiny holes in it.  You use it for (what else) drip irrigation to conserve water.  

I hated to tell Tom what had happened because it is not an easy matter to work on the mower.  It is really heavy and the only way we have to get under it is to lift the front end off the ground with the tractor.  Even then, it's not easy to get under it to work on it.

Sally came out to help, but decided she would rather roll in the grass.



The tape was wound around the blade spindle really really REALLY tightly and it was no easy task to get it off.  

But with lots of perseverance and me cheering him on, Tom got it all unwound.

So, now that it is fixed again.....I guess I'll go do some more mowing.  But, will be more careful when mowing tall grass, like that, again!