Had a little ‘Oops’ today :(

I was off to see Stephanie this morning to put in a complaint about the condition of the grounds surrounding the two RV sites here at the Winnie facility.  The grass had grown to about 12” in height, and as I said before it was distressing both Emma and me.  It’s not like I hadn’t tried to get it taken care of.  I had asked a number of people about it, but had gotten no where.  Barry and Lynn had brought out a weed whacker a couple of weeks ago to take care of a section or two, but with the recent rains the grass has just gone wild.

All I wanted was a lawn mower so I could take care of it myself.  I told Stephanie that, but she tried to find someone else to do it for me.  I already knew that wasn’t going to work, so she finally told me where a lawn mower might be located.  I did tell her that I had done plenty of mowing at Tamarac and already had my steel-toed boots just waiting to be used.  All I needed was some ear plugs.

There are a whole lot of cavernous storage areas at the Winnie facility, and of course, the mower wasn’t where it was supposed to be.  I tracked down Nathan, one of the maintenance employees, and together we were able to track it down.  Here it is:                                             Emma, of course, had to give it the all over nose test!

Oh boy!  I’ve never operated one of these 360 degree pivoting mowers before, and I let Nathan know that.  Note the roll bar (?) in the back.  I somehow didn’t take that part into my consciousness.  (can you sense a minor disaster ensuing?)  Anyway, he gave me the needed training on how to operate it, and had me practice on the huge slabs of cement until I kind of got the hang of it.  He did mention that it had very sensitive controls.

Once given the go ahead, I made my way to the RV sites kind of like a drunken sailor.  Sensitive controls is putting it mildly!  You barely breath on one of those two hand controls and the thing starts careening off a straight line.  And if you pull back, like on horse reins, it zips backwards.  No foot brake either.  Let me tell you it was a learning curve! 

I decided to start mowing in a rather large sort of open area until I got my sea legs under me.    That was a good decision.  I didn’t want to be anywhere near my rig until I was more at ease.  I was either grimacing or laughing as I made my way through what seemed like a hay field.  I was sure glad no one was watching. 

Eventually I could almost mow a straight line, and I was maneuvering around plantings pretty well, so I inched closer to my actual RV site.  This first outing I didn’t worry about getting cut grass onto the pavement.  My goal was to just hack it down.  I finished the areas around my patio, and headed over to the other side of the rig.

That’s when disaster struck.  The front of the mower suddenly came up off of the ground, and I was no longer going forward.  It seems that roll bar I hadn’t noticed got hung up on the slide.  Uff-dah!  I tried backing up to get out of the situation, but went forward too soon resulting in several gashes and…

ripping off this corner piece of the bottom of the slide.  Oops!   I’m hoping there’s an easy fix for this and would appreciate any input on how to put that piece back on and fix the scrapes. 

These little minor defugalties happen in life, and I’m just happy I’m the one who did it and not someone else.  All in all, it was a real hoot driving that crazy mower.  And just look at Emma standing in her little yard.  The grass was higher than her belly before.  I leave you tonight with what Emma thought of the new mown yard.

You know what?  Within ten minutes she proudly laid a bomb that I didn’t actually have to search for!   Mission accomplished!

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy