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Even here in the boondocks the sound of lawnmowers echoed.  After weeks of damping gloom, a blue-sky weekend released people into their yards and gardens.  Ourselves included.  I brought a new lawnmower for Monica since she refuses to use or tolerate the Luddite reel mower, and I'd broken the pull cord on the old, dysfunctional power mower the summer before last.  So, with the new one up and gasping its way desperately through our verdant crop of hay, I told Porter he could have the old one.  It was sitting alongside the shed, slimed and blanketed not just by last years leaves but by the rotten remnants of the shed's collapsed side roof.  He and Jake proceeded to clear it off, pull the thing apart, clean it, and put it back together.  Shockingly they got it running, even if it did put out a tremendous amount of smoke in a way that made you expect it to explode any second.  But the smoke lessened before anything crucial caught fire and they mowed through the dead grass and litter along the road.  So now they have a noisy, dirty and dangerous toy that pretty much works, except for the fact that the priming button is busted - so in order to start it they need to take off the filter housing, pour a capful of gasoline directly into the carburetor, put the housing back on and yank on the piece of wood that serves as pull-cord handle until smoke and almost-flame pour out with a great belch of noise. 


And still, no one but me has any affection at all for the Luddite reel mower.

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