There is something fascinating about machines
The past two weeks have seen several new chapters starting here, and probably the closing of at least one.
Today, I bought a new lawnmower. A few years ago, we had decided to cut the paid lawn service from the budget. It was getting to the point where the lawn was getting a little too small for the service that was doing it, and I was wanting to take a more active role in the upkeep of our property. At the time, I had a reel-style mower that I had purchased back in 2000 when I was living in Pittsburgh. I decided that was what I was going to use. For the first several mowings, it worked just fine. I spent a little bit of time re-packing the wheel bearings and making sure that the drivetrain was properly greased. Then I was out of town for about a week, and came back to a steady stream of rain and evening meetings for about a week. As you may have guessed, the lawn was now pretty high, and mowing it with the reel mower was painful.
In another instance, I was gone for a week and a half, and Jenny tried to cut the lawn while I was away. It was again a little high, and she really had to struggle with the reel mower to get it to do anything. She did it, but not without a lot of unnecessary effort.
It was around that time that I decided to borrow my parents’ gas mower when I needed to mow. They were right up the hill and easy to get to, and the mower worked well. This worked acceptably well, though I had to make time to get it and take it back, and fit that into whatever schedule I could so that I could actually mow the lawn.
At the end of last year, we agreed to get our own power mower. I just couldn’t be home enough to run the reel mower over the lawn every few days to keep it at a reasonable height for that mower, so power mower was the way to go. We had decided on a rechargeable model, the same as my neighbor from across the street. I went out earlier this spring to buy one at the same place where he bought his. They proceeded to look at me like I was from Mars (the planet, not the town). They had no idea what I was talking about, or where I could get it, or if they ever sold anything like that last year.
Time interfered again, and I was unable to go on a search for the mysterious lawnmower. In the meantime, I was still borrowing the mower from my parents. This weekend, I decided to finally end the search and just get a lawnmower. As much as I wanted something that didn’t burn gas, that’s the way I went. I don’t like managing an electric cord for mowing the whole lawn, and the couple of rechargeable mowers I could find were really expensive. I wanted something that could bag, mulch, or side-discharge, and I didn’t want a self-propelled.
I had my eye on a Husqvarna that met all of the requirements. When I got to the local Ace Hardware, though, they didn’t have that particular model available. They did have the next one up with the powered drive and one-lever height adjust, but that was a little more money than I wanted to spend. They did have a Poulan Pro that met all of the requirements and had a nice Briggs and Stratton engine that was around the same price as the Husqvarna would have been, so it came home with me. Helpfully, they sell their mowers pre-assembled, filled with gas, and run-tested before they leave the building, so I was all set to go.
Jenny hasn’t been feeling well, so I left her sleeping this morning to go out to get the mower. I came back with it and decided to trim the bushes out front before mowing the lawn. Now they’re all nice and normal-looking again. I also pulled a whole bunch of bamboo-like weeds (that aren’t really bamboo) from the back around the lilac bush. Then I finally got to run the new mower.
Wow. Awesome mower. It filled the grass bag three times on the lawn (at least half of that was it picking up grass from the last time I cut–my parents’ mower only mulches). It made the lawn look really, really nice.
After that was finished, I cleaned everything up and came inside. I went upstairs to change my shirt, and Jenny was just waking up. I wanted to go to Sams and maybe Lowes to find a “yard box” of some sort that would fit the mower, gas can, and kerosene can. She decided to come with me, so we went to lunch at Applebees, then hit Sams first to get cat food and to see if they had a yard box-like thing. It turns out that they did have one, so yay for that. They also had an awesome security light that is motion-activated *and* has a motion-activated camera on-board. It takes a 20-second video for every motion activation, which is then stored on a SD memory card. The 1GB card can hold something like 520 of these videos. Since the neighbor found some kids on our back porch the other day while we were out, this will make it a little bit easier to see if they are recurring visitors or really “at the wrong house” (as they told my neighbor).
Able to obtain everything on my list, we came home happy people. I put the box together and stored the lawnmower, gas and kerosene in it, then sat down here on the porch to relax for the rest of the day. And wow, what a beautiful day it is turning out to be!
In other news, another new chapter is my entry into the fire service in New Kensington. I had been thinking about doing this for quite some time. Actually, I’ve been thinking about it since I moved back to New Kensington. What finally pushed me over the edge, I think, was when Company #2 a couple of blocks from us got their new engine last year. I had gone over to take some pictures that I intended to post on the Parnassus Civic League website (they never made it, unfortunately). On my way back home, one of the guys from the station was bringing one of their engines around the corner onto our block. I turned around to grab a picture. He stopped and said that if I was interested, I should consider joining. It was one of the maintenance guys from Valley High School.
I thought about it a little bit for the next couple of weeks. I decided to talk to the Bruni’s, who are our landscapers, friends and neighbors. They also encouraged me, and prompted me to join Company #1, which is the downtown station. I got an application from them around Christmas time. I thought about it some more, filled it out, and gave it back to them sometime in March. I got a call from the company secretary a few weeks ago, asking me if I could come in for an interview.
I interviewed there, then was asked to stay for the regular meeting that occurred a little while later. They brought me into that meeting and swore me in as a new member. Woo hoo! The following week I got my physical to be approved to respond to calls, and that was accepted by the department last week.
So that’s it. Now I’m a member. I don’t yet have equipment (it has to be ordered), so I probably can’t do a whole lot yet. I can show up for work details, though, and help out where I can. If we were to get a call now, I could at least respond to the station, though I don’t know if I could yet go to the scene. I also get to participate in the parade on Monday for Memorial Day, so that’s awesome. 🙂 There is an awful lot for me to learn, though, which is good. I’ll get to go for a lot of training, I hope, and plan to learn as much as I can.
Mom and Dad are wondering why I am doing this. Besides having wanted to do it for a while, I think that this is an important part of serving my community. The fire service here is volunteer, but it isn’t free. It isn’t a bunch of guys sitting around drinking beer and waiting for something to burn. This is a group of people who go through an awful lot of training in order to put on 100 pounds of gear and carry a heavy, unwieldy hose into an enclosed area that is on fire with the express intention of protecting life and property. I don’t have enough money to pay the people who are going to show up if our home or any of our neighbor’s homes are on fire. However, I can lift and move heavy things, I can operate complicated pieces of machinery, I can drive large vehicles, and I can operate radio equipment. If I can do these things and be useful in the service, then that seems like what I should be doing. It is community service of the most direct kind, and I like that.
So there we are. I hope I might be able to get equipment soon. For the meantime, though, I’ll show up when I can and will do what I’m told, and hopefully help some people along the way.
That’s all for now. Have a great weekend.
jonathan
