Volume 14 - Day 182/183, 2022 - Friday

The first lawn mower was invented by Edwin Beard Budding. Sounds English, right? Patented in 1830, he got the original idea from watching a cutting cylinder at a local cloth mill. While patented, it took almost ten more years for an effective machine to be put into action. When Jody and I lived at the farm, I had a BIG tractor, and a smallish John Deere riding mower. As the years went by, the mower did its' job, in spite of me. At one point, I crashed into the hay fork on the tractor, parts of the mower flying hither and yon. But it still worked. I used to lust after a bigger mower whenever I went to Home Depot, but I never caved in. With the mower we had, it would take four to six hours to cut the grass around the house, but I really enjoyed it, it was time to be kind of mindless, not really thinking about anything, but thinking about EVERYTHING at the same time. Today, I passed this row of mowers at Home Depot, and it brought back a lot of interesting reminders of our years at the farm. I stayed home today, and got a lot of stuff done. I decided over the last weekend that I needed (NEEDED) a television in the living room, which meant rearranging the furniture, buying one more piece of furniture, arranging the cable box to be activated, buying a television and rearranging some of the art pieces in the house. It was all supposed to happen today, and it actually did. The cable guy got here first, the guys to help move the art around got here next, and they delivered the tv before noon. Everything fell into place as planned, which hardly ever happens, no matter how much I try to get everything coordinated. I think I should buy a lottery ticket now.