Say hello to Gloria, the newest tenant in the garden shed.
For starters, though I actually went to a store to buy her, she came out in a box, in a state of dishabille, not wearing her wheels or her handle. I had to take the top off my Jeep to get her in it - not that I minded riding "topless" on this gorgeous, warm afternoon, but I may mind it in the morning when it's 60 degrees and I'm driving to work.
She came with her own bottle of oil and a package of fuel stabilizer that I added to our existing gas can. I filled her up, pumped her little fuel button a few times, and yanked. It didn't crank on the first 5 pulls, but it did after a few more tries.
My intention today was to loosen up a row I tilled with the big tiller yesterday. When I lined her up and hit the throttle, she immediately buried herself up in the soil, and I couldn't push her forward. Eventually, I turned her around and went down the row backwards.
On firmer soil, which was plowed, disked, and tilled two weeks ago, she didn't bury herself up quite so easily. I was able to work the soil going forward by letting the tiller run ahead and then dragging it backwards toward me as the tines turned.
She quit a few times during the job, but cranked right back up again. Still, it peeved me that she quit. Maybe she just needed to get her fluids flowing, or maybe I didn't have a throttle lever in the right spot. We'll see how she does on the next job before we judge her.
Today I planted two rows of green beans, two short rows of okra, and six hills of cucumbers. As I looked down those two long rows of green beans, I thought about how long it's going to take to pick them, and wished I'd planted two half rows today, and two half rows a couple of weeks later. Pop-Pop used to tell me not to plant the whole garden at once, but I just can't seem to get that through my thick head. I need to plant more squash, and some other beans and peas, but I'm going to try to force myself to wait a week or two, so everything won't come in at once.
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