*Caution* Post contains major whining. Enter at your own risk...

How often do you feel like selling the damn farm and moving to a condo??   Sometimes I do, I have to admit.  Tonight is one of those times.  

We've had so much rain lately, and I've been away working a bit, and trying to get stuff done and falling behind'er and behind'er...and tonight the &$@* lawn mower won't start, and I'm only halfway through the lawn, which somehow got away on me (because of rain and work trips away!!) and is now in excess of 10" long.   And the mower is a loaner, and it has no throttle cable, so it only goes one speed, which is okay when the grass is short, but right now I move forward 6 inches, and back 12 just to keep the thing running.

It sometimes just takes one dumb thing like that to make me want to chuck it all and move to the city.    I get stuff done on my days off, but I also have a commitment to my sanity that I also get to have some fun.  I sometimes feel like I've bitten off way more than I can chew.  Other times it's fine.

Thanks for listening.  Out I go again to pull that darn starter cord another couple of dozen times and hope the old B&S will find it in her heart to fire up for me.  

Sending you hugs of understanding here! I have had those days. More often than I care to admit. Does it help to say stick it out...something wonderful will happen and the sun will part the clouds.

I feel that way every time I look at the insurmountable weeding that should be done.

Instead, we are tearing out all the crap that needs weeding and putting it to grass. Trying to make life easier in the long run, even if it's more work in the short run.

I've also struggled with this recently, ESPECIALLY on the lawn aspect. Our riding tractor got totalled along with the truck and our current push mower has mowed 5,000 times its standard life worth of yards and is giving up the perverbial ghost. Going through weeds it's fine, hit real grass and it bogs down. By the time I'm finished mowing with the yard it's Friday and Sunday I have to start all over, assuming it hasn't rained, which means I won't get Saturday off. When I come home from work and assign Moose to dinner, then don't make it back in the house until after 10, it makes me want to break down and cry. And I do.

This needs doing, that needs doing, this needs money, the goats destroyed this, I have too many dogs, the garden is a failure blah blah blah. I know hun, and I'm here for an empathetic ear any time you need.

Done that and am there most days , but what would life be without challenges ? I have gotten to a point that I think when all seems lost that this is my cue to sit back and look at the whole picture and try to see some other way that has so far been sight unseen to me and then I proceed forward with the hopes that this time it will be better .I do know what you mean with the lawn mower though , done that a million times in the past , finally figure it out that maybe I should be on a rider instead of pushing , a few dollars later I haven't had to deal with that problem again ...........on to the next ! It's a battle for a lot of us , these things life throws at you , but it also pass's .............cheer up and start again  

Has been like that around here to this year.
I was sick and the rain the lawn got be be over a foot
lawnmower wouldn't start. Talked to hubby (he is working
out of town) asked if I had check under the mower to see
if it was packed with grass. I new about this but forgot and
guess what it was cleaned it up and it fired up. Has taken
about a week first cut done now its time to do another but
it is shorter. Our son came out and took the gas weed wacker
to the back yard for me so when that dries I will mulch it up
with the mower. Liking hubby's idea more and more he wants
to just toss out wild flower seed and let it go.

Anyway yes this spring has made me want to pack it up.
After the mower wouldn't start I ran away for two days
of shopping in town I mean I fed the animals but that was it.
I had just had it. Felt better after that and am getting back
on track.
PS didn't mow the whole front lawn left some for the goats
it is now so high you can not see my dog in it and she is about
the size of a lab.

The grass at our place is exactly why we got SHEEP! We just move around an electric fence and they move with it, I mow the front of the house to make our yard look "pretty", and the back yard is kept trim by the goslings, and ducklings back there, I mow it maybe once every couple weeks. And it looks "pretty" too with the natural fertilizer.
I just mowed the hill tonight where our meat birds will be going in a week's time.

I know how it feels to be bogged down, I felt like that a lot when the kids were small and I had bitten off more than I could do with little ones around, but now they are bigger and can help me out. I can't imagine holding down a full time job and doing all that I do here, so sympathize with all you that do.

Thanks. I am no further ahead. But I really appreciate your replies. The dogs don't say much when I complain.  

I didn't get the lawn touched but I did do about 5 other little jobs and one somewhat major one, so I'm feeling a lot better.

Thanks again. xo

Yep, sounds like my life too.

My garden is overrun with weeds. Hubby broke the transmission on our tiller this spring. It's not fixed. Got my parents tiller. Won't run. I am hoeing by hand. The dirt is hard as a rock because of all the rain and its well into the 30s in temperature.

Oh and there are 10 million mosquitoes.

Half the goats have been wormed and had their feet done, but I need hubby around to do the other half and he gets basically no days off until the end of July. And it's TOO HOT.

Our daughter bathed two horses Sunday using water from the cistern. We have city water that trickles in constantly but very slowly. So since then we have had to be very careful. Tonight I watered one flowered and the cistern is dangerously low again.

I am ready to move to that condo with you tonight. I hope it has AC!

Seems we have all been bested by lawnmowers at one time or another. Ours mows lots of bush and rocks. And while I complain about what I cannot grow up here, when I the hear the huge task that yard maintenance becomes, I'm glad we only have about 900 sq feet of scabby lawn. It uses maybe one tank of gas a year and takes about 4 minutes to mow, when it grows, which isn't very often.

FarmChiq, you need to hire some big, burly farm boy who is more brawn than brain and pay him a pittance to mow for you while you sit on your porch, sipping a cool one and admiring his shirtless ability with a mower. Come on, it's a no brainer. I hired myself a summertime poo shoveller. Of course he's 14, trips over his untied laces, has no clue how to handle a poo fork and I spend time watching him because he has not grasped the concept of 'stay away from the electric fence'. So my hired help isn't quite as glamorous as yours will be. Hire him and post a pic.

Or..make the lawn smaller. As in, mow your smaller line in the grass and say that's it. This is the new edge of the lawn. Beyond this mowed line there is a natural grass preserve where natural grass preservatives will live and flourish. What's the worst that can happen? Will the lawn police arrest you for re-drawing your lawn lines where you want them? I think not. Do it. rebel. Mow to here, and no further.

If the mower quit when it got more than it could handle, it may start again when it has cooled down. Our "let's toss everything" was with the rototilling. The old tractor's get up and go has got up and went. A rental rototiller broke with half the garden done. A rental tiller means at least an hour's drive to Kamloops. We dug by hand, but will likely buy a rear tine tiller and a bigger tractor/mower/tiller for next year.

I have always had a secret passion for one of these.

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Weed whacker on roids!

hire some big, burly farm boy who is more brawn than brain and pay him a pittance to mow for you while you sit on your porch, sipping a cool one and admiring his shirtless ability with a mower. Come on, it's a no brainer. I hired myself a summertime poo shoveller. Of course he's 14, trips over his untied laces, has no clue how to handle a poo fork and I spend time watching him because he has not grasped the concept of 'stay away from the electric fence'. So my hired help isn't quite as glamorous as yours will be. Hire him and post a pic.

 TOO funny!


Everything but our house and side yard looks like a savage jungle right about now AND we have a new rider. Time on the other hand seems to be a limited commodity.  I refuse to worry about it unless the skeeters start trying to carry off the children.

Hang in there farmchiq. Things will get brighter.  And don’t forget to post a pic of your new glammed up hired hand!

Well the B&S lawn mower just wouldn't start tonight (Rosewood it wasn't running when it quit - it just wouldn't start again a day after I did the first 1/2 of the job) so I took drastic measures.  Sometimes I'm kind of glad I don't have a man around the place, because I would have got into SO MUCH $#!+ tonight doing what I did!!!  But I got the grass mostly cut!  I crammed the JD lawn tractor with the 42" deck through the 40" yard gate with only a little  backing and forthing....I thank my experience living, and having to back my bumper pull horse trailer at speed into my driveway - on one of the busiest roads in Chilliwack - with my ability to jimmy anything into any spot...at speed!!  So I to'd and fro'd and said a little prayer and got the thing through there.  I couldn't believe the grass.  At least a foot tall, weedy, really wet underneath.  I would have died trying to finish the job with the push mower with one slow speed.  So to heck with the gate and the paint job!!

So thanks, all of you who commiserated with me. I really appreciate the shoulders, the ears, the shared sympathy.  

Admit it, Uno. You stole that image from me. . .

Sounds like time to borrow your mower from a party with a better mower. Even B&S motors quit after so many years of abuse.

Rosewood I'm seriously thinking I will invest in a good gas mower this summer.

When the ex moved on, he took the one we had. I didn't appreciate it as much as I do now. I bought a push reel mower, thinking it's just a small yard, I don't need a big gas self-propelled job. Well, push reel mowers work well on level polite lawns that are attended to regularly. They don't work well once the grass gets a bit too long in the spring rain, with homeowner away on business. So I found a little electric mower on a buy&sell site, cheap. Great buy, but at only 14", it took a long time to get much done and the little motor just had to work soooo hard. So when a friend loaned me her larger electric, I jumped at it. But that's no longer. So the B&S came along, and was good for one mow, and that's all she wrote. So I think the writing is on the wall. I've given it a fair shake, trying to be environmentally conscious, and trying to live within my means.

Viva la MasterCard, baby. I'm going shopping at some point. Rosewood maybe you can save me some time. I want a mower that I don't have to mix the gas. Is that common? Anything to worry about with that?

Most mowers now have 4 stroke engines as the 2 strokers using mixed fuel/oil are not envirnoment friendly, A single US company makes a lot of the various brands. The one we have here came from Costco and seems to work fine. Look for a cap labelled "oil" on the engine. If it has that cap the oil and fuel will not be mixed.