Pay attention

So I got married because of this driving need to find out what's wrong with me.
Now I know.
I know every little thing. I know that I pee poorly, that I don't sort dishes correctly, that I'm a slob, that I don't know how to dress, that I snore and more and more and more. One thing I've been taught is that I don't pay attention. That's sad since my job requires a whole bunch of paying attention, which I do miserably. Do I do my job miserably? No. But I could be better.

I was mowing last weekend. It's a wonderful thing to mow my yard. I can zone out and watch the horses and eagles and BUGS and critters as I just sorta daydream and mow and mow for over 2 acres and nearly 4 hours.

I bought this new thing for the garden. It's called a cold frame. With it I can now have a fresh salad in mid-winter and I can start my brocolli and cauliflower and cabbage early in the spring. A cold frame is like a little bitty 3 X 3 greenhouse. I put a tarp down on the ground to kill the grass and then put the cold frame over the tarp. Soon I'll have a nice flat tarp floor for my itty bitty greenhouse. Then I can start growing salads for the cold months.

While mowing I got really close to the cold frame because I don't like to run the weedeater and I wanted to get all I could using the mower. SSchloop. Suddenly the tarp was gone. Sucked up under the mower and wrapped around the blades.

I stopped and took a good look. Dang thing is really wrapped. I walked back to the house and got some pliers, channelocks, a knife, a box knife, industrial scissors. Went back to the mower to wage tarp-war to free my cutting blades for the remaining grass attacks of the day.

I lay on the dirty, buggy damnit hot ground and inspected my mess. It was wrapped good. I tried to loosen parts of it. Tried to cut off pieces of it. Tried to tug and curse and contort. Even went to the truck and got a jack to see if I could jack the thing up on its side thereby making it easier for my eyes to remove tarp tangles. Jack didn't work at all.

I spent at least an hour struggling with that damnit tarp thingy.
Nothing would give. Nothing would even budge. I've taken mower decks apart before and I began looking at this one to see what tools I might need and how to start. There was no other way I was going to get out of this mess without pulling the entire deck off and then turning it over to get a good luck at the tarp. That way maybe I could see a way to free me.

So I got back on the mower and drove it over toward the shade so that I could really get to work on it. I looked back behind me after driving to the cooler part of the yard where we keep shade. There was the tarp.
It came off on its own.
Real easy.

So I started mowing again. One good thing about living out in the country is that you can't always be seen.