The Tractor Saga
This story starts two winters ago, when Joe and I decided to buy a riding lawn mower to take care of the flat grassy areas here at the Refuge at Pudding Creek. The Refuge is mostly hilly, and weed whacking becomes my main form of exercise during the grass growing season, but it seemed like a nice idea to sit down to mow at least some of the grass. A used riding lawn mower went up for sale in town, and after inspecting the machine and much debate, we decided to purchase it. I was very excited!
It worked for exactly 3 mows and I illogically found it embarrassing to have wasted so much money. The mowing deck (the part that actually cuts the grass) had fallen off due to corrosion, and it was too old of a mower to find the replacement part. We parked it in the back of the barn, where over the next year cardboard and boxes piled up on top of it, and I tried not to think about it too much.
Of course, we would not have purchased the machine if we had known. But sometimes, the mind tells us that we should know what we can't know. Sometimes we make bad decisions, or decisions that seem bad that turn out to be good, and then maybe even bad again at some point, because the story isn't over until the story is over.
Meanwhile, very casually one of the neighbors mentioned that he had an old trailer sitting in the back of his barn that we could have. It turns out that it was the perfect size for the riding lawn mower. We (ok, Joe) cleared the junk off of the mower and started the engine. It still worked! We (ok, Joe) connected the small trailer to the mower, and viola, a tractor was born. The possibilities opened up in my mind. Oh, the things we could get done with a tractor!
The first project I had in mind for the mower would be done over Memorial Day weekend, when three friends were coming to help us with some outdoor work. The hillside above the lodge was covered in firewood from some trees that we cut down to make space for a deck for an outdoor soaking tub. I planned to have us use the tractor to pull the wood down the hill so that it could be stacked in the firewood shed. The tractor made one trip up and down the hill and then promptly stopped working. We did the rest of the work with wheelbarrows. It turned out to be a very fun and productive weekend, although I was again rather disappointed about the tractor.
One day, while sitting under an apple tree and drinking tea with a second neighbor, I grumbled to him about the riding lawn mower/tractor saga. He is very handy with machines and felt confident that he could fix our tractor. A few days later, when the sun was shining, he came over and fixed the tractor. It needed a new solenoid. I can't say that even now that I know exactly what a solenoid is, but now we have a new one and the tractor works. Just yesterday, I drove a load of firewood in the tractor trailer over to the neighbor who had fixed it.
You might ask me what I learned from The Tractor Saga. I'll remember that the story is not over. Things change and break, things get fixed, plans change, and we can't know the end of the story. Keep going, keep breathing!
The other lesson is about generosity and community. In this whole wide world, everything and everyone depends on something else. Reach out to those around you, lend a helping hand if you can. If you need help, it's ok to receive it too. Belonging and community are actions, things that we do everyday.