Father’s Day and Dodging a Bullet

This past weekend I was blessed with a wonderful Father’s Day! It has been much more difficult to get the whole family together since most of them have grown, left the nest and started out on their own lives. This Sunday though it was an absolute pleasure to welcome four of the six home for a day of talking, laughing, playing games and a visit to our “petting zoo.”

There were a few moments when the kids were together laughing and talking and I just stood back to savor the precious sounds in our new home. Other times I couldn’t help but to butt in and join the fun. It was really fun to watch our littlest try to keep up with the activity and conversation of his bigger siblings.

For dinner each of us crafted our own pizza and enjoyed devouring the results.  We followed up our meal with some homemade chocolate cookies and a game of Apples To Apples. It was a great time to have such fun around our dining room table again.

Once the festivities died down I wanted to take advantage of the setting sun (and temperature) so I hopped on my tractor to do some quick mowing. I ran the tractor along the fence line when all of a sudden the tractor died abruptly. I got it started again, but could not get it to go forward with the mower engaged. A quick inspection revealed that I had apparently failed to clean up a small bundle of wire I had used the previous weekend while putting up some fence. The mower blade had sucked it up and wrapped it tight around the shaft. I took a few quick tugs, but it didn’t appear it was going to be an easy fix. I gave up for the night in order to get back to the kids who were preparing to leave.

I returned my attention to the mower last night with some measure of anxiety since I had learned that the blades on a brush hog are tightened to such a degree that I knew I would be unable to remove them with my limited tools. I was armed only with a hacksaw, wire cutters and some pliers. Thankfully it took just a few strokes with the hacksaw and the tight bundle released itself. The pliers made an easy job of removing the remaining wire and the blade was free and clear.

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