I Tell You, It Was a Helluva Weekend

It was one of those long, short weekends.

Friday night we had a benefit deal to go to at a local Horseraceing track. I bet three races, won two and came home $4.00 ahead. Yeah, it ain't much, but it's better than losing!

Saturday morning I had a work function (it was a fun function), but it took up the entire morning. Saturday afternoon was taken up by an old lawnmower. I should have been doing yard work, getting ready for a party we had on Sunday, but after 6 days of rain the yard was too wet to walk in, much less mow and rake, so we played with the lawn mower instead.

The picture ain't my mower, but the one we have is a dead ringer. According to the knower of all things (better known as the internets), this tractor was only made in 1976 and 1977. The one we got had been wrecked and hadn't run in 3 or 4 years. But it was free, so what the Hell.

We pulled it apart and flushed the fuel lines and cleaned the carberator and spark plug, put in a new battery and straightened a few bent parts (precision sledgehammer work is one of my specialties) and fired it up. The broken hulk got delivered around noon and we were cutting grass at 5:00. All it cost was a battery and a busted finger. I lost track of what I was doing and caught my finger between a belt and a pulley. Hell yeah it hurts! But nothing broken, only bruised, and it wasn't the finger I type with anyway.

Sunday was the party. My grandaughter (who was born in December) wanted to have a birthday party while it was warm out. What the Princess wants, the Princess gets. She even had a pink dress and new tights for the party. To go along with her Crown and sash that proclamed her the Birthday Princess.

The dress lasted about 10 minutes into the party (6 days of rain tends to create a little MUD), but she still had a good time. Played some games, ate some cake and developed a new .... spectator sport?

My youngest son has a remote control sand buggy. He and his brothers determined that it was fast enough to maybe jump a ramp, if the operator were so inclined. Around our house we tend to have several operators who would be so inclined.

Turns out we also had several volunteers ready to lay down in front of a speeding remote control sand buggy, in the hopes that the operator MAY actually, you know HIT the ramp. For me, it was a spectator sport. But we did at one point have 4 four year olds behind the ramp, waiting to see if the car would crash into them or jump over them. The car made it, and I think I have it on tape.

So it ain't a night at the Ballet, but it was entertaining. It's what always happens when you mix rednecks and something that moves under its own power.

It was a matter of supreme will power (mostly my wife's) that we did not try to jump the new lawnmower over anybody.