Saturday Slightly Discouraged

I think the straw hit the camel's back, or more correctly, the blinds hit the floor this morning.  When they came crashing down, holders and all, rather than just the blinds, I grimaced and said to myself, "Well, that's par for the course."

What a way to start another day after a Friday of discovering frozen potatoes all through my garden spots and a few zinnias I'd forgotten to cover the night before.  When you put stuff in half a dozen different areas, you tend to forget the garden plot inventory.  I'd forgotten the four zinnias in the west-lawn garden and the two I'd transplanted into the antique manure spreader.

They had the sags yesterday morning as did every single potato plant that had come up in the past week or two.  I found a few more potato eyes and stuck 'em in the ground next to the sad-sack plants.  I know I'll be going to a garden store and purchasing another supply of seed potatoes.

Oh yeah, did I mention that it froze here again last night?

Potatoes, freezing weather and I haven't been a good mix for the past year.  We suffered an overnight but intimidating frost last August or September.  Although it didn't kill my many plots of potatoes, it set them back significantly. 

When I harvested them in October, most were more like mini spuds rather than true Idaho gems.  Still, I collected a couple of boxes of them and put them in the new old motor home inside the shop for storage. Even all that protection could not save them from the December 10-day freeze.  

I was in Maui, not thinking about potatoes, and Bill was home, thinking about all the other chores.  He forgot to put a heater inside the motorhome to save the "Depression potatoes," as he likes to call them.  I discovered the mushy carnage a week or so later.  

So, last year's potato crop went down the tubes (no pun). And, this year's is getting off to a bad start.

Frozen plants were not my only problem yesterday.  Since we were spared of rain, I decided to rototil the two remaining garden plots, both pretty good size in comparison to my others.  The rototiller had been dying on me, so when Tony, the fix-it man, came the other day I asked him to look at it.

He finally deduced that it had a tank of bad gas.  That conclusion came after he'd taken a section of it apart and put it back together. 

"Just run it with the choke half open and use up that gas," he told me as he left, not charging me for the visit.  

So, I rolled it out to the plot behind the barn, tinkered with all the necessary plugs and levers, and pulled on the rope.

The entire rope came out of its housing----broke off completely.  

I sighed.

Then, I went to the shed and got some tools.  For the next three hours, I attempted every measure to get that rope back in its turnstyle the way it belonged.  It was where it belonged but not inserted correctly because every time I pulled on it, I had to manually rewind it back into the turnstyle.

Now, there's a process that require patience.  

For some reason, I had more than usual yesterday and the air was not nearly as blue as it usually is.  

One time I successfully started the machine,  directed it three or four hundred feet down the driveway, across the yard to the north garden and then prayed constantly as it tilled up the dirt.  By the time I arrived at the garden, however, the rope and its handle FELL OFF the rototiller.  I was in full speed ahead tilling when that happened so I just threw it over the fence and revved up the "Hail Mary's."  

Well, God wasn't completely pleased with me and my uncustomary patience.  

About two thirds of the way through the tilling process, the tiller died. 

So, I grabbed the rope and pushed it back to the shop.  First, I tried a new piece of nylon rope.  Too big. Then, I got some twine, about the same size as the original starter rope.

The tiller actually started on the first pull, but the rope fell off again.  Back to the garden and back to praying.

God was nice.  He let me finish the tilling, but on the very last patch of untilled garden, the machine shut down again.  At least, I'd finished the job.

I'll keep working at that starter rope, or better yet, call Tony again-----when enough time has passed in between his visits for him to wonder what the hell I do with my lawn and garden equipment to have it break down so often.

In the meantime, I'll go get more potatoes and stick 'em in the ground.  I have little zinnias to replace the fatalities, and I think I can get that set of blinds back up where it belongs.

These things do get discouraging at times, but we forge on.  That's what a lifetime has taught us to do in North Idaho where the people are basically good, the weather will get you every time,  and if things want to go wrong, they will.

Happy Saturday.  I'll be off to Plow Day, which is just a mile down Selle Road again this year.  Maybe I should get one of those tractor men to come and fix my starter rope.