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That's an easy place to be, try this one instead!
Friday June 19th
Ok, I'm sure you think I make this shit up, but really, doesn't this kind of thing happen to everyone? I was mowing the lawn, and I noticed the right side blade was leaving a trail of higher grass. Last week, the center blade had been not cutting, because it was spinning free on the drive shaft, so I tightened it. Well, I decided to stop and sharpen the blades, but I didn't want to take the entire deck off, it's a real pain, so I just ran the mower up on a set of car ramps and using my little hand grinder, I sharpened the blades. No big deal, do it all the time. I even turned the engine off this time, as I was going to sharpen all three blades. I then went back to mowing, and it was cutting quite well. But, as luck would have it, the key fell out, you know, the ignition key. The original key broke a couple years ago, so I got a blank from my storehouse of keys that I bought after I finished the LockSmith Course I bought on Ebay a couple years ago. So I wasn't too upset when the key fell out, I just knew I would have to find another blank to replace it, but just being a blank it wouldn't stay in, so I was carrying it in my pocket until I could wire it to the dash, as I had the other one. See the wire broke after only a few years, but I can deal with that, too. But I digress...
After mowing the acres around the big house I was making a pass down the street to cut the grass near the road edge of my west pasture. (I've done this for two years.) It was even recently cut by the county with a "Mowtrim" equipped tractor. {Mowtrim is a local company that puts a mowing deck on a side-mounted backhoe-style articulated arm to allow mowing of the sides of hills and fields and other areas otherwise too dangerous to attempt on a regular mower. It's pretty neat really.} So I had a good view of the edge, maybe that's why I was ultimately too close to the edge. I felt the gravel cave in under me and the left front wheel of the Cub Cadet started to shift to the left, and the back tire was right along with it in a second. I really had no time to correct. Now if I'd been raised a farm kid, rather than a biker, I might have realized "jump right" let it go. But having been raised on motorcycles, I stuck my left foot out to stop the roll. First mistake, well maybe second, if you consider mowing the gravel hill as a dumb idea, but...moving right along. There was nothing to stop against!
I'm not sure at what point I realized I was in a bad situation. When I slammed backwards into the five strands of barbed wire at the bottom of the hill? Or maybe when I realized the still running tractor was flipping, side over side down the hill towards me? Actually, I was rather surprised at the strength of the five strands of wire that were holding me, I'd thought that surely they were going to break as I hit them, so I was really not happy about the barbs digging into my back and legs and other things, but that was not a concern for long. As I realized the tractor was tumbling side ways down the embankment toward me, guess what? It was still running! I really wished I had turned the key off, but it was in my pocket. I realized that on the next roll the blades were going to be parallel to my face! At least the blades were recently sharpened, and the removal of whatever they chopped off would be pretty clean, so to speak, well maybe not pretty, and I guess not really clean either.
You ever hear about things going in slow motion when really weird stuff happens? Well it does, and has, in quite a few instances in my life. I have always been an adrenaline junkie. I didn't realize it until I was in the military and they had us do a lot of self examination type stuff in officers training. It kept coming back that I had a penchant for things a little more dangerous than most normal people. I often suspect that if I'd been "Real Military" rather than "Guard", I might have ended up in some really cool training that if I told you about I'd have to kill you... And talk about getting killed! Well, there I stood, feet tangled in the old welded wire fence that had been pushed down to the bottom of the fence posts, and unpleasantly aware of the barbs on the newer but still rusted barbed wire that was holding me in position for the approaching, spinning, meat cleavers. I watched the three recently sharpened blades in the deck as the 600 plus pound tractor rolled slowly down the hill toward me. At that point I decided I wasn't going to die like this! This was the height of stupid--chopped up by my own freakin' lawn mower! Bullshit! I mean really, how could I miss a Darwin Award for a dumb ass stunt like that? You ever hear about the 30 horse power a human can generate in times of stress? Well, I started generating, and literally caught the edge of the mower deck and lifted it to keep it perpendicular to me, causing the mower to stop rolling and start sliding down the hill side toward me. A good move, in that it kept the spinning blades from getting to me, but I ended up pinned, pushed backwards into the wires even harder than before. I'd stopped it from rolling any further, but it had slipped into the V shaped opening between me and the hill side. There was a small downside to this action. I was now completely pinned to the barbed wire fence and the mower was hanging by the deck on the hill on one side and the padding that I keep over my "rock hard abs" on the other, and supporting all that weight? Five strands of rusty barbed wire! I was surprised when the wire caught and held my falling weight, but now I was amazed that the wire was still holding me and the tractor!
I had to move the top wires so when I cut the rusty center wire, the tractor could flip back onto its tires. I was trapped between the barbed wire and what is the left edge of the deck. Obviously, I couldn't get a picture of me stuck there, and I'm not going to willingly re-enact it, so this is as good as you'll get.
Unfortunately my amazment didn't last long as I slowly realized that the wire wasn't going to fail! I was relieved that the engine had stopped, although I had no idea why, but the blades were finally winding down. My situation was changing, but I started to be concerned it might not be toward the better.
Find the tractor in this picture!
I later discovered that the roll down the hill broke the carburator off the engine, which is why the blades stopped spinning.
I now found myself with a different set of problems. Three or four of them were barbed wire. Another was the fact there was no one to call for help. The women were in town for the day, and I was only mowing...how much trouble could I get into?
This shows I'm below the sightline, invisible to passing traffic.
One of the things I love about my little road is that there is nearly no traffic. Well, that is unless I'm trying to back something into a driveway or turn something around that has to go out into the road, then of course there is a freaking parade. But that day, nothing passed for over a half hour. If I had met with the blades, I would surely have bled to death. But the next best thing is being unable to breath. Those well padded rock hard abs are somehow involved in breathing, and throwing a tractor against them somehow makes getting a full breath really hard! OK the tough part was over--the blades didn't grind me up. And I wasn't bleeding much, as there were only a dozen or so barbs involving themselves with my back and legs and my "rock hard glutes"... But I was finding it tough to convince my body to slide across the barbs to get free.
Now I have to say that barbed wire is an incredible deterent to movement, particularly sideways, while being pressed into it. You know all those movies, where the hero just blusters his or her way through the barbed wire? BULLSHIT! If I hadn't been about to die, I'd still be there waiting for somebody to come pull that tractor off me. Now I'm sure you are asking yourself why I didn't just push the tractor away, side step a little and let it roll up against the wires, and let me free? Well remember those shoulder and back problems I whine about incessantly? Well here it comes again! That, plus being at a thirty degree angle backwards away from the load I was trying to move. Throw in a couple barbs with blood oozing around them, and well, I freakin' couldn't. I was also getting short of breath because the discharge chute of the deck was pressing with hundreds of pounds of force against those well padded "rock hard abs" of mine.
As there was no other option, I did eventually slide across the barbs, but it wasn't pleasant, and I don't ever want the opportunity to do it again! And when I get the tractor repaired (accomplished Saturday June 20th), I think I'll probably just not worry about the mowing near the road for that field again. I say, let the guy with the Mowtrim do his job...
So my point is: being between a Rock And A Hard Place ain't shit compared to
Gravity, Five Barbed Wires and Three Spinning Blades!
Man, are we happy out here!
The happy Nada Farmer, finding new ways to make the same mistakes for 56 years. And still checking out the healing capabilities of my little human body... I recently read, With the proper care, the human body can last a lifetime?????
Keep coming back , I'm sure I'll screw up something else soon.
