Poor Gracie

To look at her you may have no idea that my little princess is sick. She has thrown up almost everything she has eaten in about the last twenty four hours. Last night after she threw up all the food and water in her stomach she started throwing up bile. I felt so bad for her because it obviously hurt a lot and she was probably pretty hungry by then too. We put her down a little later than normal and she slept pretty good. I thought she was getting better today but when we were about half way into a 40 minuet drive to get new lawn mower blades (more on that later) she threw up everything she had eaten up to that point. We are blaming it on the bottle of milk I gave her before her afternoon nap. Since then she has been okay though and went to bed with little fuss tonight. Oh, and she is getting two new teeth. That can't be fun, flu and cutting teeth. I just hope she gets better soon.

About the lawn mower... We have not mowed in over two weeks because the grass was not growing. With the regular rain we have been getting it is now! So right after noon we put Grace down for a nap and went out to mow. First mistake, I put diesel in the mower a little while back so it has not been running exactly like it should. In my defense, there is a diesel can and several gas cans in the shed, I filled the mower with something out of one of the gas cans. Turns out it was not gas. Now the lawn mower sounds and smells like all the family cars we had until I was in high school. It is most like the big blue van though because it shoots clouds of blue smoke when we start it. Second mistake, I got too close to the culvert in one of the ditches. I dislike mowing the ditches mainly because they are steep but also because I worry a lot about getting one of the wheels or the mowing deck stuck on a culvert. I was trying to conquer my fear by mowing as close to the culvert as possible so as to not leave a large patch of long grass. I hit a piece of metal that sticks up on it and bent one of the blades. Which became more and more evident as I continued to mow leaving a dirt patch on the lawn every couple of feet where the bent blade was cutting off the top layer of soil. Papa called around and found a tractor dealership that had blades on hand so Grace and I took a road trip to pick them up.

I feel really bad first that I filled the tank with diesel and second that I just cost us time and money by ruining the blades. Oh by the way, our mower has three blades and you are not supposed to replace just one, no you need the whole set. And our yard looks like it has not been mowed in months. And our bum neighbor boys never mow their lawn preferring to wait until it gets so long their mom comes over and mows it herself? They have mowed two times since I have last. Driving by our house you would never guess that I love to mow or that we have a really great lawn mower and yard sweeper sitting unused in the shed. Maybe you could guess the last part about the unused mower. And we just remembered that we have a family event all afternoon Saturday and the church picnic Sunday. Looks like the lawn will have to wait until I have another day off. Just look at it as if we were letting the native grasses take back the land that the settlers so unfeelingly took away by planting more uniform grass and keeping it cut short. Maybe our lawn is going through its hippie phase.