I almost electrocuted myself this evening. Yesterday, I cleaned up a big mess on my front porch. This motivated me to clean up a few more messes. Our deck is a mess and so is the tiny backyard the Monkeys play in. Our vacation, the rains that followed for ten days or so, and the mad dash and craziness that comes with getting three children back to school caused me to neglect it. It needed mowing bad. Really, it could have been baled. We had a small Memorial Day party at Mamala's house this afternoon. The boys and I arrived back home with just a little bit of daylight left. I told the Monkeys to pick up their toys and I went to get the lawnmower. It is a really little bit of lawn. It takes about ten minutes to mow it.
I have two lawnmowers. One is an old fashioned push lawnmower the other is an electric lawnmower. When the grass gets too tall, I have to use the electric machine. So I set up the lawnmower with an orange electric cord and proceeded to mow.
There are all kinds of kid accouterments in that yard; trampoline, swing set, log cabin playhouse, and the dog trough. Yes, Abby needs a dog trough not just a water bowl. This is pretty much a lawn mowing obstacle course.
I started mowing and was trying to get it done. Gustave is supposed to bring us rain tomorrow, so I needed to get it done tonight. I was just about done and it was just about dark when it happened. I ran over the extension cord. Sparks flew. Monkeys fled in a panic. Tailless cats jumped from the deck to the roof. The dog looked at me like I was retarded. I unplugged it and we are all fine.
Moral of the story: Do not mow in the dark. Has anyone else ever endangered their life doing yard work?
Letting the garden grow
14 hours ago
We stoppped using the electric mower for fear something like this would happen. Most of our yard is a very steep hill and that electric mower weighs a ton.
ReplyDelete--Curmudgeon
I'm glad you're okay Deb. You must be more careful. But to be honest, I use to hit the extension cord all the time when I used our electric weedwhacker. :)
ReplyDeleteOh my god Debbie .. you fell into the club of thousands (and Imean that) who have done the same thing .. and a lot of it was during broad day light , so you had a GOOD excuse girl !
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad no one was near the spot it happened .. monkies, dog, cat and assorted wildlife you have on the go there .. hope Gustav doesn't do anything naughty there.
Aaaahhh!!! The horrors of mowing! My own worst yard-care-related moment was falling off a ladder while trying to pull a bale of hay out of the hayloft for the chicken yard, and then slamming my hand onto a rusty nail while trying to regain my balance. Yeeowch!!! But at least now I know that my tetanus shots are up to date. Glad you all escaped harm!
ReplyDeleteI've always heard it said "hard work won't kill you", but now I'm beginning to rethink that phrase. Why take a chance.
ReplyDeleteWe did the same thing, got up early and got everything done outside, anticipating all the rain Gustav was bringing; we got nothing!
Wow...glad you're all okay! Another reason to feed my rationale for not mowing my yard!
ReplyDeleteI don't even go there! Which means I will not get behind a lawn mower, period. I have one side that has to be mown, and everyone around here hires this guy. When I was a kid I watched my grandmother stick her hand down somewhere around the lawn mower and cut part of a finger off. I'm a klutz to start with, have enough disasters for ten people. No lawn mowers for me!!!
ReplyDeleteBrenda
Hi Curmudgeon, I wouldn't try to mow with that thing on a slope.
ReplyDeleteHi pgl, Yep we need to be more careful
Hey Joy, Thanks for sharing. At least I'm not alone.
Nola, The clouds just got here and it is Tuesday afternoon. I could have waited until this morning.
Lisa, glad to provide an excuse.
Ofb, every time you tell that story I get the willies. Yikes.
Brenda, I am to cheap to pay to have anyone do yard work for me.
You reminded me of when my gran did the same thing. All she could do was laugh, she found it so funny. I went and switched the electric off. Glad you're OK - hope Gustave isn't too bad for you.
ReplyDeleteWe use a push mower too. There's no power at the allotment and then we discovered it was quicker to use it on our tiny lawn than it was to get the electric one out.
Oh yes..I've tried to kill myself..cut right through the extension cord (I shouldn't have used a green one) while I was pruning my shrubs with the electric shears. Scared the crap out of me and then I had to explain to my husband what had happened to his extension cord.
ReplyDeletehi vp, we love our little push mower. It just doesn't work when the grass is too tall.
ReplyDeleteHi rhonda, at least you had the excuse that it was green and harder to see. The one I ran over was bright orange.
I've totally hit the extension cord while using my hedger. If the sparks didn't kill me, the sound and scare it gave me would have My heart about jumped out of my throat.
ReplyDeleteBonnie, I pretty much jumped out of my skin.
ReplyDeleteI had to stop using electric weed trimmers too. I have a bit of a problem keeping track of the cords. Oops! To this day if you look in our tool box you'll see a bazillion extension cords. I didn't want to admit my stupidity to Cheesehead or he might revoke my rights to use the power tools. Hmm, maybe that would be a good thing!
ReplyDeleteCinj, sounds like a good way to get out of a lot of work to me.
ReplyDelete