I wasn’t going to go and then I was and then I wasn’t and finally I did. I went and mowed at Mother’s. I knew I might have trouble getting a mower started and was steeled for it. I should have been wearing a lead shield; I think I believe little animals that build nest in motors emit sub-atomic rays that threaten your will to live.

They were probably watching and chortling while I spent almost two hours with the Wheel Horse that acted like it was ready for the glue factory.

It started – the tractor – when this whole episode started. It started for a moment, then died. I would try repeated and it would try, but no go . . .literally. So I sighed and hooked up the battery to the car. That was not going to work, but it popped into my head that maybe the air filter was dirty. It wasn’t.

I peeked in the hole beyond the air filter and saw “stuff”. I thought it was a little stuff, but it turned out to be BIG STUFF. I pulled a lot of stuff out through the little hole and there was still more, so I investigated and found four screws with hexagonal heads set in special little screw indentations. I did not have a little bitty socket tool . . . but the man across the way did.

More precisely his young grandson did. This was lucky for both of us because it gave the boy a chance to use his tool set other than working on taking apart about everything in his grandpa’s house and, for me, there was a way to get the engine cover off.

After all my time digging out the infamous STUFF, I figured I would find some areas where it remained. The engine cover exploded off with the pressure of the remaining STUFF which was a GREAT BIG WHOLE LOT.

And the engine – she roared to life. And I mowed and mowed and mowed until evening grew nigh. I put things away and locked up the shed. Oh my, I forgot to mention that last fall at the last mowing I had hung the keys to the padlock on a nail inside the shed and later absent-mindedly closed the doors and padlocked them – which of course does not require a key to do. And I did it. So, yesterday, I had to pry off some wood, crawl into the shed – and it was warm enough for snakes – to retrieve the keys.

The little nest-building rodents were probably thinking, “SERVES HER RIGHT.”

So I look up from the padlock to see an old, white-bearded Amishman on a bicycle pulling into the yard and asking, “How’s Grandma?” I said, “What?” He repeated it and I pointed to myself with a question on my face. He said he was talking about the lady who had spoken with him a couple of years back about taking some trees down.

After talking with him about her death, I ascertained that his son’s name was the name that Mother had left written on a note page on the dining room table. That mystery solved. We talked some more and one thing led to another and he mentioned when his mother died. She was born in 1917. What??? My dad was born in 1918. I said to the old man that I was 63, and would be 64 in August. You’re going to love this: he said he was 63 and would be 64 in November. ACCCCCCKKKKKKKK.

Oh, Lordy, I am an old Amishman sans beard . . . although I have referred to may chin hairs on occasion.

As I was driving later on a east-west road with the setting sun at my rear, I realized the shadow of my car stretched out far in front of me and I could see my head in the shadow. So I put up my hand and tried to make a shadow puppet. I am an old Amishman sans beard on an (east-west) road to senility. I don’t know what I would have told a police office had I been stopped.