Lawnmower Marriage Lessons

So, I've been learning to mow the lawn this summer. It's been my summer project.

First let me state that I already knew how to mow the lawn -- I've been pushing a lawnmower since I was 10 years old. This is different -- this involves learning to drive the garden tractor -- and learning how to navigate around a gazillion obstacles without killing myself or wrecking the tractor.

My long farm saga:

Despite growing up on a farm I never learned how to drive a tractor -- or anything of the sort. Partly because I left the farm at 13, but mostly because I was a girl. My dad grew up in a different generation. He moved from horse drawn implements in the 20's and 30's to gasoline powered implements after the war. Gruesome farm accidents were common due to zero safety features on equipment of this period and the following decades. In my dad's mind women simply didn't drive tractors or anything else that could get you killed or maimed in a split second. I never learned how to drive anything but a car, and I was terrified to do that.

My summer mowing adventure:

It takes about 4 hours each week to cut our lawn and George's workload left very little time for for it this summer. I offered to help out several times but he seemed pretty wary of it. Probably because he thought I would kill myself and/or wreck the tractor and was nice enough to not say it out loud.

One night early this summer while mowing our deep-enough-to-lose-the-beagle grass George received an emergency call. He was in a real pinch, the lawn needed to be finished up and he would not have time to finish it that night or the next, or the next. So I nervously offered to finish it up. I could see the wheels turning -- he was mulling over his options, realized he didn't have any and decided to let me give it a try.

After 10 minutes of instructions about what switch did this and what lever did that I was on my own as my husband backed out of the driveway. I just about panicked. What if it stopped working? What if I forgot what one of the levers or switches did? What if I fell off on a slope and the tractor fell on top of me? (Can you tell I've got an active imagination?) Why didn't we have a lawn care service to do this work? With each turn and tree successfully navigated my confidence increased to the point of not worrying so much about killing myself to being happy about learning a new way to help George when he needed it most.

Thus went the next month. As I mowed each week I learned more about the tractor -- what to do and what not to do (it's old and needs "assistance" sometimes, just the kind you want to learn on -- reminds me of my first couple of cars!) I was overjoyed that I was mastering a new skill and helping George at the same time. After a month George still seemed hesitant to have me cut the grass and cheerfully explained that I felt more capable than at first and wouldn't get hurt or hurt the tractor. After a very long moment of silence he voiced these carefully chosen words: I want you to mow the lawn.... only......... if you do it........ right. My perfectionist tendancied husband was not showering me with utter gratitude for taking over one of "his" chores but telling me it had to be done his way!! Aggggh! I thought I was doing great for even managing to drive the tractor without killing myself or someone else! I tottered between wanting to laugh out loud at the irony of being married to a perfectionist and wanting to give him a piece of my mind.

(For those of you not married to a perfectionist "the right way" means the perfectionist's way. But, of course you already knew that because if your spouse is not the perfectionist in the family, you are. God has a sense of humor in matching people up like that. But seriously, each type of personality has strengths and when you put them together in a marriage you get the best of both personalities -- except for when you are fighting over who is more right : )

I sucked it up and chose to focus on the irony/funniness of the situation and ask what he meant by "right". Apparently there is more to this lawn mowing that just cutting the grass. Fast forward through the summer to a couple of days ago. I finished up the back half of the lawn which now involved shredding leaves and directing them in a particular way and George came out and said "Great job! You are really getting the hang of it!" Beaming with pride I hopped off the tractor and thought to myself what a good summer it's been and my George isn't so hard to please after all.

Some additional interesting lessons:

• Growing up on a farm you use a lot of hand signals for things. Important things like let another one through, back it up, move it just a few feet, stop, cut the power, stop-right-now-or you-will-run-me-over and things like that. Communicating with your hands in a work environment is very helpful, especially if the person you are communicating with speaks the same hand language. Apparently George and I have different signals for cut the power. His signal is to forcefully push both palms down from chest height to waist height. My signal is a knife to the throat motion. Let's just say we had some issues with that one. Guess we had better figure out if we differ in any other signals -- because a difference in hand signals generally means damage to equipment/property and/or people.
  


• We will not be planting anymore trees in the yard. Amen.
  


• You know when you run over a rock and the mower makes that horrible noise? Well, when your husband asks you if you know what causes that noise be sure not to mention you hear the same noise all the time when he mows.