I have been known,
on occasion, to dig my heels in over the wrong issue. When this occurs, I
often find that I am in a situation where I am pushing myself beyond my
safe physical limits. This past Monday, I found myself in this familiar
predicament of starting a project which common sense would tell me to
avoid.
Scott woke up with the stomach flu
which had rendered him down for the count. I sat in my living room
watching the snow pile up on the driveway, fretting over its removal. I
became hyper-focused on the fact that we were not going to be able to
drive to the hospital should something happen. I hate feeling
vulnerable, so I decided to take hold of the situation.
Although
I have had no experience driving the John Deere plow, I had full
confidence that I would be able to figure it out. After all, how
difficult could it be? I am an educated woman who is fully capable of
pushing snow off the driveway. I bundled up and headed to the garage to
conquer the plow.
Starting the machine was
my first obstacle. I am embarrassed to admit that it took me at least 10
minutes before I had the engine humming. Apparently the steps need to
be completed in a precise sequence in order for the mower to start.
Satisfied that the hardest task was behind me, I inched the mower/plow
out of the garage and prepared to clean the driveway.
It
definitely took me awhile to get the hang of the operating the plow,
but before I knew it, I was creating a wide swath of clean asphalt. I am
sure that creating some sort of pattern in my swipes would have been
beneficial, but I wasn't agile enough with the machine to make that
happen. Instead of plowing in an orderly pattern, I adopted the "if I
see snow, I'll try to push it to the side" mentality. It worked, but it
certainly wasn't efficient or pretty! At one point I was feeling so proud, or perhaps cocky, that I stared serenading myself with the theme song from "Bob the Builder" as I pushed the snow out of my way.
Unfortunately
my snow removal attempt was not without a few mishaps. The pedals to go
forward and backward are nearly identical and I continually confused
them. In an attempt to go backwards I pushed the wrong pedal,
accidentally plowing down our previously neatly stacked wood pile. To
my dismay, my heirloom hydrangea bush was also the victim of a similar
pedal mishap. In the spring I will have to reseed a portion of my front
yard which is approximately two plow widths wide. Thankfully Mr. Bill
has a forgiving heart, because I also have to reseed a large section of
his side yard. Those pedals really should be differentiated better!
After
two hours and some collateral damage, the driveway was clear of snow. I
felt the surge of adrenaline which comes from accomplishing a new task
as I triumphantly drove the plow down the driveway towards the garage.
Unfortunately I managed to drive the tractor off of the asphalt and into
the woods, stranding the machine in the high snow.
It's
a good thing that I had plowed Mr. Bill's driveway because he was able
to come to my rescue and tow the mower out of the woods. He only asked
for one thing as compensation: a promise that I was done plowing for the
day. After my adventures behind the wheel, I was happy to oblige.
No comments:
Post a Comment