Peas planted - April 29, 2024

Yesterday morning the weatherman predicted rain for much of the coming week.  Our yard had not been mowed since the day before we left on our trip. After a few days of rain, the grass would be up to the roof.  Nanny's yard needed mowing, too.  Since we keep our riding lawnmower in the shed at Nanny's, I'd do her yard first, then ours.

When I got to Nanny's, The Brother-in-Law was already there, mowing with his big zero-turn monster mower and was already halfway done.  Woo-hooo!  I cranked up our mower and joined him, and the two of us knocked it out in nothing flat.  I came back to the house to do our yard while he did the weed-eating at Nanny's.  Bless him.

In our yard, we have a swing-set for the grandchildren.  Our lawnmower fits perfectly between the legs.  One end of the swing-set has a glider, the kind that seats 4 little butts.  The lawnmower fits through that space, as well, but you gotta push that glider with the nose of the lawnmower, then grab it and raise it up high enough to get under it.  It takes some doing not to get knocked out cold in the process.

I was ALMOST all the way under the glider when there was a terrible metallic noise, and the lawnmower just STOPPED.  Long story short (too late?), I had run over a mole trap that was hidden by a clump of clover.  

I thought, Ohshitohshitohshit....

So I'm sitting there on the lawnmower, holding the glider over my head, wondering how I'm going to get off the lawnmower without maiming myself, certain that I had killed the lawnmower.  When I finally disentangled myself from the seat, I managed to push the lawnmower back enough to get the mole trap.  It was mangled.  

But the lawnmower cranked right back up and cut grass.  Whew.

While I was mowing the yard, The Husband went to get a battery for my Wrangler.  It has been sitting in the driveway for months without being driven or even cranked.  Since we are thinking about driving it to a Jeep rally in Florida next month, we didn't want to tempt fate.  Once the battery was installed, we checked fluids and washed off the tree sap.  It's ready to roll.

Later that afternoon, I talked The Husband into tilling the garden one last time, and we planted the purple hull peas.  This week's rain ought to bring them right up.  We really should have gone on and planted squash, cucumbers, and okra, but by this time I was tired, covered in dust, and hungry, so we just put all the gardening equipment away and came home.

Tomorrow, if it's not raining, I need to stake the sweet peas in the community garden.  I haven't laid eyes on the plot for two weeks, but the plants were only 2" tall when we left on our trip.  By now, they may be a tangled mass.  I am thinking about planting tomatoes amongst them if they don't hurry up and produce.  When I planted them, I kind of expected them to have made peas - or at least bloomed - by now, but the seeds took a long time to sprout.