Memorial Day Weekend

It's been a busy weekend around here, both in and out of the garden.  My son and his family, who have been living over an hour away from here, moved back home this weekend.  While we were not to be directly involved with the move, we had committed ourselves to some babysitting, and so Saturday morning, we got busy with our errands before the young'uns arrived.  The first thing we had to do was retrieve the big red tiller and the push mower from the repair shop.  The minute we unloaded it, I gave the cord a yank, and it fired right off.  YES! 

Later in the afternoon, I took a grandson across the road to visit Nanny and Pop-Pop.  We found Pop-Pop on the tractor, disking the back section of the big garden, where the rain and the trenching and the grass had impeded our bean planting.  Seeing that he had the disk hooked up to the tractor, I asked The Husband if he would please run the disk across the un-planted, un-tilled area of the early garden so that I could plant some cucumbers.  He said he would, and this morning, after the grandsons went home, he kept his word.  While he did the disking, I picked the rest of the sweet peas and pulled up their support stakes, intending to till the vines into the soil and plant something else in their place. 

When the disking was finished, The Husband brought the big red tiller up to the early garden.  As it was high noon by this time, I suggested we wait until later in the day to to the tilling.  The Husband readily agreed.  Then, about 4 p.m., he vacated the premises, entirely, to go to a skeet shoot (the nerve of him, eh?).  I decided that I would surprise him by going ahead and tilling the early garden before he came home.

The tiller cranked up easily, but it kept quitting.  Remembering from last year that the tiller appreciated a full tank of gas, I hoofed it back to my house to get the gas can.  Naturally, the gas can was empty.  I tossed it in my Jeep and went to the store to fill it.  Topping off the gas made the tiller run without quitting, and I made pretty quick work of tilling the area that The Husband had disked.  I then steered the tiller over to the sweet pea rows.  I hadn't gone 10 feet before the left tire came off the rim. 

I pushed the tiller back to Pop-Pop's house.  With the tire half off the rim, the tiller kept wanting to go left when I wanted to go straight.  I probably ruined the tire trying to wrestle the tiller down the long driveway to the workshop.

I am so tired of ragged-assed, second-hand, piece-of-sh*t garden equipment that has to be worked on TWICE before any job is completed.

At least the cucumbers got planted.  Tomorrow, we plant green beans and black crowder peas, if we can get the tire back on the rim.