\u201cAnyone know how to drive a riding mower?\u201d came the question. <\/p>\n
I looked around at the 30 college students gathered about. Oh, let the answer be, \u201cno.\u201d Let there be no one who knows how. Not because I was concerned about their safety. <\/p>\n
I should say this (for legal reasons): I WAS concerned about their safety. Because I was their \u201csite leader.\u201d I had led this group of students on a Flagler College community service day out here to Another Chance Ranch. We were supposed to clean pens for goats and horses and dogs and other cast-off critters that these incredibly compassionate and wonderful people at this non-profit had taken in. <\/p>\n
It all seemed like pretty harmless work. Throw some watermelon to the pigs. Play with a dog who needed constant attention. Walk the other dogs. Clean out some chicken coops. You know, farm stuff. <\/p>\n
And then the mowing question came up \u2014 \u201c\u2026 know how to drive a riding mower \u2026\u201d Safety wasn\u2019t on my mind as I hoped they wouldn\u2019t go for it. Rather, it was a much more selfish reason: I WANTED TO DO IT!<\/p>\n
Mow a field?!? Are you kidding me! On a riding mower? That\u2019s like the greatest thing ever. The tract of land stretched to the horizon. It must have been 1,000 acres. It would likely take a full week to do it, cover me head-to-toe in grass clippings and probably involve a cranky snake coiled up under the seat gnawing on my ankle. <\/p>\n
It sounded great!
\n<\/p>\n
\u201cUh \u2026 I\u2019ll give it a shot,\u201d I said. \u201cFair warning: I\u2019m dyslexic and barely know my right from my \u2026 what\u2019s the other one? And once I fell out of a moving car with my seat belt on. But I think I\u2019m perfect for this job!\u201d<\/p>\n
These all sounded like proper qualifications, and soon I was placed atop a little orange mower with a shaky steering wheel and sent off to carve wild, wavy lines in the grass while screaming, \u201cYahoo!\u201d<\/p>\n
But you quickly learn an important lesson while mowing a field roughly the size of Delaware: It is even MORE fun than it looks. Maybe it\u2019s because the rules are so simple: 1) overlap the cut grass by a couple inches and 2) turn hard before you hit a fence or a tree. That\u2019s it! Avoiding livestock, other people or your own ankles are all optional. <\/p>\n
There\u2019s no thinking involved, and it\u2019s almost meditative. Cathartic. I fell asleep twice. I worked out deep philosophical questions like: What\u2019s the meaning of life? And did I defrost chicken for dinner? <\/p>\n
Most of all, I just breathed in fresh air (along with a lot of gas fumes) and escaped the \u201creal\u201d world. I didn\u2019t get distracted by text messages or cars or people wanting this or that. It was just me, out in a field, mowing some grass. Free with my thoughts, unbound. Cut-off and off-the-grid. Staring at the natural world instead of the digital one. Talk about liberation. <\/p>\n
When I finished up, the organization rep looked a little stunned: \u201cYou mowed the whole thing,\u201d he said, kind of surprised. <\/p>\n
\u201cMister, I would mow every weekend, as long as there\u2019s fresh air and no digital screens,\u201d I told him. \u201cPlus, if we could do something about that critter gnawing on my ankle.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cAnyone know how to drive a riding mower?\u201d came the question. I looked around at the 30 college students gathered about. Oh, let the answer be, \u201cno.\u201d Let there be no one who knows how. Not because I was concerned about their safety. I should say this (for legal reasons): I WAS concerned about their safety. Because I was their \u201csite leader.\u201d I had led this group of students on a Flagler College community service day out here to Another Chance Ranch. We were supposed to clean pens for goats and horses and dogs and other cast-off critters that these incredibly compassionate and wonderful people at this non-profit had taken in. It all seemed like pretty harmless work. Throw some watermelon to the pigs. Play with a dog who needed constant attention. Walk the other dogs. Clean out some chicken coops. You know, farm stuff. And then the mowing question came up \u2014 \u201c\u2026 know how to drive a riding mower \u2026\u201d Safety wasn\u2019t on my mind as I hoped they wouldn\u2019t go for it. Rather, it was a much more selfish reason: I WANTED TO DO IT! Mow a field?!? Are you kidding me! On a riding mower? That\u2019s like the greatest thing ever. The tract of land stretched to the horizon. It must have been 1,000 acres. It would likely take a full week to do it, cover me head-to-toe in grass clippings and probably involve a cranky snake coiled up under the seat gnawing on my ankle. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2018-nutshells"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1821"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1822,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1821\/revisions\/1822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}