Equipment maintenance on the farm is a never-ending task. The more diversified the operation, the more constant the need for repair and upkeep.
But there’s one piece of machinery often left out of the maintenance schedule, leading to frequent malfunction and sometimes even marital discord.
We are speaking about the lawn mower.
The lowly mower isn’t directly involved in farm income generation or livestock production. Its task is related to appearances, which some farming individuals consider frivolous.
So, the mower’s problems have to wait until such time as everything else on the place is running smoothly, a state of affairs known as farm equipment Nirvana. Like the repeal of the GST, it is sometimes talked about but never actually experienced.
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All of which means the lawn mower is rarely sharpened and its engine rarely tuned.
Allow us to recount one woman’s story of mowing mayhem last summer. As she tells it, the crops were as high as an elephant’s eye, and the lawn nearly so, when she could finally spare time to cut the grass.
First she dragged the compressor from the shop to the riding mower to inflate its flat tire. (She usually mentions a machete at this point in her story, but surely that is hyperbole?)
The tire reinflation allowed her to more easily push the mower to the nearest pick-up truck, where she charged its dead battery with jumper cables. After an hour of fruitless attempts to get the mower running, she discovered the spark plug was missing. Her husband later confessed to robbing it for use in a pump.
By then it was time to quit the yard and make supper. The woman claims the lawn grew another inch that night. Her husband, on the other hand, woke up shorter after his brow-beating.
Given the obstacles, it’s a wonder that one sees so many lovely and lush lawns on prairie farms.
Which makes it all the more offensive when city folk, unaccustomed to lawns comprised of prairie-adapted, drought-hardy Russian wild rye and creeping red fescue, visit the farm and park right on top of it.
Such visitors should not be surprised, when farm dwellers return the visit, to find a pick-up truck parked on their city lawn full of citified, thirsty Kentucky bluegrass.
A survey recently reported in the Calgary Sun says some Canadians describe a weed-free lawn as being almost as satisfying as sex.
Alas, with poorly maintained lawn mowers, few of us will ever be in a position to make the comparison.
