They say if you want to get ahead… “Don’t let the grass grow under your feet!”
That’s easy to say, but when you have had 2 months of non-stop rain, the grass in our field (in polite society, the Blonde calls it a garden but, listen to the one who cuts it… it’s a field!)… the grass in our field has run amok… unchecked.
Little Red Tractor. Can't Go... Won't Go
But, with the third consecutive day of unbroken sunshine (thought I’d never be able to say that again) the grass, lush and very, very green… was cuttable. Or it would have been, if the Little Red Tractor had agreed to work after its long holiday.
Can’t Go… Won’t
It has ceased to proceed. The belt thingy won’t even let the engine turnover. Quite how it got in that state when all it has done is sit there under its tarp for 2 months, only the grim reaper probably knows. OK… last time I used it, the belt did come off, but I put it back on, finished the mowing and then drove it to its parking place. Under its own steam. Now…. It refuses to proceed an inch further.
Oh, stop bleating, I hear you say. It’s not the end of the world. But it is close to that, I tell you. Here in the wet and dry Lot, if you do not keep on top of it, you are overwhelmed by grass in days! And then the neighbours complain to the Mayor and he comes around and drinks my pastis and, ever so gently, orders the grass cut. Sick Little Red Tractor (LRT) or not.
Snake in the Grass.
It’s because of the snakes. Apparently there is nothing that your common or garden Adder (Veeperrs, they call them here) likes more, is grass that has not been cut by a LRT. The neighbours fear them and woe betide anyone that allows their plot to overgrow. Especially if you are English with an overgrown plot. Then it is in danger of becoming an international incident! Mind you, they may have a point.
Let Sleeping Snakes Lie - Especially Adders!
Quick
The lazy brown snake looked peaceful enough, sunning itself beside my crumpled green “rest area” plastic perch (well as fields go, it is quite steep and this is half way point). A very necessary place to pause, these days, I assure you. Anyway, I was about to avail myself of a bit of a sit-down and a view appreciation session across the valley, when something caught my eye. Said peaceful snake, sunning itself blocking my way to a much earned rest. It was the finely honed self-preservation reflex (the hair on the back of my neck) that told me this was an Adder, mili-seconds before my brain flicked over that much thumbed page in my childhood’s Ladybird Book Of Snakes, deep inside my memory.
Ah ha! Mutters I. Snake didn’t move. P**s off, says I a tad louder… snake didn’t move. Spotting the son and heir down the field aways, I caught his attention to come running. “Look here”, cautions I… “if ever you see one of these, run like hell in the opposite direction… it can kill”. Morbidly interested now, he bends forward to get a better look. The snake didn’t move. Before I could stop him, the son and heir bent down to pick up a stick… now just inches from slumbering snake… pow, the thing uncoiled and like a flash of lightning seemed to fly… in the opposite direction! That was close… if he’d come the other way, he’d have had us both. Even now, the motto around here, is “Let sleeping snakes lie”.
Virility
Anyway, I digress… this is all about my LRT, It’s a man thing. There is something about the LRT that appeals, I think, to the “man-is-provider” gene much suppressed these day. I mean, cutting the grass with a tractor is, well, it’s putting you back in touch with the soil! Cut the grass one day… plough and plant the next! Loads of freshly dug veg to feed the family. Dream on. Cutting the grass is just about as far as it goes around here. When LRT works, that is.
Day Job
I’m not alone in this hypothosis. One of my day jobs is searching for property for clients, who, for one reason or another, cannot search for and visit property themselves. (The main reason being the extraordinary attitude of many French estate agents… but that’s another blog someday). So the e-mail pings yesterday and it is from California (somebody must have written an article about Property Search Agents based in France, because this is the third Californian enquiry in as many months. Or maybe they are all trying to escape the coming earthquake! Anyway, in discussing their property requirements, I, naturally, asked how much land they wanted/could cope with. (Yes I know it was an intelligent question to ask straight-off. I told, you, I am a Search Agent, not an estate agent!). I have heard quite a few amazing answers to this one in my time, but I was unprepared for this response. Which was… “Just make sure that there is enough land to make it necessary for me to have to buy a ”…. you guessed it… “a Little Red Tractor.” Apparently, he’d always wanted one! And, he was damn well going to get one for his French hideaway, in spite of what his wife thought!
Which brings me back to one of the most pressing problems facing me this week. How am I going to cut the grass if LRT decides to join the son and heir for the Long Vacance?
I’ll let you know.
Rural Living in France (Rural Living in France: A Survival Handbook)
More normal
Live in back of back of beyond. OH is off to a land we will not name and FT phone line goes down. They promise to get it repaired (their problem) last Friday as I am still on sick leave. Do they – do they heck. I still do not have an outgoing phone – I never thought that for one min. they would fix it. I cannot even phone them to shout at them.
Cannot use second vehicle as it was attacked by a hunting dog, OH being a kind and gentle soul turned sharply and did not know that there was a ditch with rocks where he was turning. Hound – 1, vehicle on back of truck to repair shop – 0.
Internet works when I do a set of strange sequences with FT and VOIP phone long enough for me to send mail and info like this.
One presumes all of this is normal in France. – Ah my allotted space for sending things has arrived. Have a good Bastille Day and as I will not be with you all give my regards to Henri, OH would have been there with me if he was en France.
FF
OH got his LRT and automatic drag along (or is that self propelled mower?) out and neither would go. It is another normal occurrence. Now just to let you know that nothing is normal anywhere – I went to Portugal for the winter Dec-Mar. It actually stopped raining (read for that throwing it down) for 5 days in total. We had the airport closed because of the force of the rain and wind and to add to it all an earthquake.
I got up one day and said – did you feel the earth move last night? As I was alone in the bedroom strange looks ensued and they put it down to my known insanity, mumble mumble silly woman earth quake.
Phone goes – Denmark, my friends mother in a tither. Worried to death that we might have succumbed to the earthquake. She heard it on the news. Di did but the rest of us thought she was having us on said Sue. I just think it is having lived in Chile and Mexico that does it – ups the earthquake radar. It turns out Portugal’s coastline near to Spain is at very great risk of a very nasty earthquake some time in the next millennium so they are taking steps. It is because they have built a huge town of apartments on the wetlands and salt plains. Killing the wildlife in the process – and so it goes on – well it has to as although some blocks are only 4 years old they are starting to fall down.
I don’t have much faith. Over the winter they built the sea front road(s) and they got washed back into the sea over the concrete protection. It was sort of a game. I build, God takes back.
What was normal was I became ill the minute I stepped of the plane in England but that is understandable. I had “falling over water syndrome” and was not allowed to take a drop of G&T or other wonder fluids. Walking upright returned as soon as I got back to the howling gale that was France. C’est normal.
Doncha Love it.
Little Red Tractor (LRT) failed its cut test and remains very poorly indeed. LRT is now scheduled for spare part surgery. Currently awaiting a belt donor. Will keep you informed as to the outcome of said surgery.
In the meantime, the grass grows whilst LRT slumbers.
I wonder if the U.S. Military still has some Agent Orange…
Little Red Tractor today underwent major surgery and is presently sedated and under observation. The prognosis is good, however and the ITU team have decided to allow a test cut tomorrow. Will keep you informed as to the outcome.