It’s called hobby farming, and it’s a lot like hobby boating, or  hobby mountain climbing Mount Everest—money goes in but not much ever comes out. Sherwood, my husband, is a hobby farmer. I am a hobby farmer’s wife. Sherwood has a “real” job. I’m not sure what he does but it involves gluing a lot of receipts to paper. He travels. On the weekends he rides his horse, builds fences, mucks out the barn, and trims the hedges. I do everything else.



    If you have been a long time reader of my Blogs, then you know that I have a somewhat tarnished reputation for being something of an unreliable farmhand. While I do a lot of farm chores, I often have bad luck—especially when mowing. On our first John Deere lawn tractor I managed to pull a faucet off the barn, jam the blade into a pine tree root, wedge a doormat around the blade, hit a dead bird carcass, catch the pulleys on fire, hit a stump and bruise my liver, and run over the Comcast cable. (Please be advised that this is not a complete list.)



    Needless to say, I catch a lot of grief (described as overt mockage) over my lawn mowing bad luck. My luck got so bad that we had to purchase a brand new John Deere lawn tractor (bigger, better, more.) It’s way cool, or it was until I ran it into a stick that wedged in the grill of our brand new, four-thousand dollar lawn tractor. Because of my bad luck I had no idea that the evil stick had become wedged. The horror happened when I backed up—with the stick still wedged—and ripped off the hood.



    It was bad luck I tell you—also a bad design. Who makes the slats of a grill so wide that stuff can get stuck up in there? Bad designers that’s who, honestly.



    My husband, the hobby farmer, does not believe that I have bad luck. He thinks that I am a menace to his wallet.



    I, of course, disagree.



    He, on the other hand, never has bad luck. He has a death wish—a real slow, bit by bit, here a finger-there a finger, death wish.



    I have never seen my husband do a single farm chore where he has not smashed, bashed, crushed, sliced, mangled, dislocated, or destroyed one or more of his own phalanges. He often requires stitches. Recently, while loading field wire at The Tractor Supply Store he managed to jam a bit of wire between his fingers that required six stitches.



    When he showed me the gaping hole, he said, “What do you think? Will a butterfly bandage do it?”



    “What’s the rule?” I asked patiently.



    “If I can see fat, tendons, or ligaments then I need to visit the nice folks at the emergency room.”



    “Very good, now do you mind if I don’t go with you to the emergency room today? I’m really backed up on the mowing.”



    When he got back from the emergency room he started in on the hedges with our brand new electric hedge trimmer and a hundred foot extension cord. He trimmed the hedges, beautifully—also the extension cord. He trimmed it in half. It’s the second one he’s chopped in half.



    I observed, “Are you trying to electrocute yourself? Or are you trying to pioneer a poor man’s taser?



    “Since you’re going to Wal-Mart can you pick up another extension cord? Why are you going to Wal-Mart anyway?”



    “Duct tape—to tape the hood back on the lawnmower.”

   

    “Right,” he said, pausing. “Get two, three rolls.”



    “Right.”



    Because in the end, there isn’t much that can’t be fixed with duct tape, including bad luck and double negatives.



    Linda (Mow Hard, Mow Fast) Zern