Shit Happens

I was going to spray the vineyard with fungicide.  I got on the lawn mower to drive it to the sprayer in the shed.  It went ten feet and quit.  I checked the gas tank.  It had over a half-tank of fuel sloshing around.  I started it again and went two feet. It started and died without moving.  Crap.  I went into the house to report to Mom that the spraying wouldn't happen today, either.

"This has been a frustrating couple of days mechanically," I told Mom.

"Well, let's face it," she said, "it has been a frustrating couple of weeks or three."

I waved my hand at her.  "Yeah, but that's you.  We're talking about me now."

She snorted and waved her hand, "Oh, okay, that's just me."

"Focus, Mom.  It's all about me right now."  Hands were waving, fingers were pointing to me.  "Focus."

"Okay," she breathed, recovering from laughing and wiping her tears.  She tucked her hands between her knees and leaned forward.  "I'm focused.  Go."

Mom got the Reader's Digest synopsis.  Not here.

First I had trouble getting the spear off the tractor.  It's a nifty little 3-speared jousting device (weighing way more than I can pick up) that is attached to the tractor's bucket with a bolt and nut through a hole. The spear stabs those big round hay bales so you can move them.  My nephew puts it on because he is a strong young man, and he usually takes it off for me so I can use the tractor.  He had left it on the night before because they needed to get to his nephew's soccer game.  No biggy as long as it's just finger tightened.  I can get it off.  Usually. 

The trickiest part is figuring out lefty-loosey with a wrench on an upside-down nut you can't see.  You can't see it because the bucket is low enough that it won't accidentally fall on your head.  This is important for me.  I know that there are some people who think all those mishaps over the married years were because of the drinking, you know: the concussion in the bathtub, the trip over the cat and through the sliding glass door, the death-by-toilet episode, the cell-phone debacle.  But I have proven over the past six months of sobriety that this is actually a finely honed talent of mine.  Who else can get a concussion while feeding a cat?  I think the step of keeping the spear low is vital for me.

So I would figure out lefty-loosey with my hands (my fingers know) and then try to duplicate it with the wrenches.  There are two wrenches: one for the nut and one for the bolt.  The wrench on the bolt kept slipping.  I switched wrenches, letting the shorter handled monkey-wrench wedge itself against the bucket, and concentrating on the nut I can't see.  This takes a bit of positioning of the body between the spears to reach it. The wrench on the nut fell to the ground.  I un-positioned myself and scooted it out from under the tractor with the other wrench.  Then I repositioned the monkey wrench, figured out lefty-loosey with my fingers, and tried again.  (Have I mentioned that my nephew is a strong young man?)  The wrench clattered to the ground.

"This is unacceptable!" I yelled, throwing in a few cuss words that I very seldom use anymore.  I stomped to the tractor, climbed up, turned it on, and raised the bucket.  I would just leave the tractor running which would decrease the chance of hydraulic failure and death by tractor-spear.  I didn't even need my fingers to figure out lefty-loosey: I could see it.  One good tug to counter the super-strength of my nephew, and the nut was free to spin, and the bolt was removed. I marched to the seat, lowered the bucket, and left that spear in the dust.

I entered the vineyard in triumph, lowered the shredder to a nice low height, and turned it on.  Within 10 feet, I had snagged a roll of wire hidden in the grass (it was in front of the bigger roll of wire that I could see and so went around). I turned off the shredder. Cuss, cuss, cuss.  People just leave things lying all over this ranch, and by golly, why can't they pick them up?  I'm going to pick up every darned stray object on this ranch all at once on purpose so I don't continue picking them up one at a time accidentally with the shredder.  By golly.  Cuss, cuss.

I backed the tractor up and the wire nearly came loose.  Hmmm.  Maybe this wasn't as bad as I thought; the wire didn't seem to be wrapped tightly around the blades.  I got down and tugged on it.  No movement.  Back on the tractor I went forward, and the wire moved.  I backed up, went forward, backed up, went forward.  I got down and tugged.  No movement. I bent over, ass in the air, head by my knees, trying to see under the shredder.  I knelt down and tried again to look under the shredder.  I'd have to get it out of the grass so I could see. I left the vineyard and drove back to the shed where the tools are, dragging that wire all the way.  On the driveway to the barn, I could see that the bundle was stuck on the bent corner of the shredder's frame by just one wire.  I got wire cutters even though I know that I can't cut fence wire with wire cutters, but the bolt cutters were in Robert's truck last I knew.  I got a hammer and tried pounding it down.  I went to put the hammer away, and TADA!!!! There, hanging on hooks in all their vibrant red glory were the bolt cutters.  I grabbed them.

As I turned around, I saw dog shit on the floor of the shed with a distinctive Teva print smooshed through it.  Some dog (obviously not my dog, because she is a good girl) had shit in the shed.  Naturally I stepped in it.  I sighed and went about the business of snipping the wire and tossing the smashed-up bundle in the bucket to put in the trash trailer.  I wiped my foot on the grass, got on the tractor, dumped the wire and shredded the darned vineyard.  Without further incident.  Except for the rebar from the removed row 13 which is now lying next to row 12 which caused a ruckus but didn't get caught.

"Okay," I said to Mom, "I'm done.  That's it.  This fall I'm picking up all the crap around the ranch.  But first I have to go move the lawn mower because it's sitting behind your van."

"Okay," she said.

I left the room, but turned and came right back.  She put her head down on the desk.  "What now?"

I told her about my Facebook status.  I thought it would make a dandy t-shirt, or an awesome first line for a novel, but I used it on Facebook: "Shit happens.  I just never see it until after I step in it."

I'm going to go shred now.  Wish me luck.