I had worked the ground the garden is built on for the last several years. I got the tiller out of the building, gassed and oiled it, fired right off, and I started making rows. I had it down to ten by twenty in the middle. That’s when the tiller quit. Dead. And after an exhausting trip was told to pack it up and get a new one. ‘New Ones’ don’t happen to retired oldsters.
I planted potatoes (they look nice on the end) carrots (first time) okra, two rows down the right, seven tomatoes on the left, four pepper plants over there as well.
A dear friend GAVE me a tiller. A Mantis tiller. It had been in her garden shed for years. Aches and pains prevented her from using it. It looked kid of cute, eight blades across. No wheels, handles like a tiller, etc…. I took it to the shop, the replaced the gas lines and told me it was ready. I went, paid them $24.31 and picked it up.
Got it home, filled it with fuel, took it out to the garden spot and pulled the rope. One time. It started and sounded like a kitten. I looked down at the grass overtaking my garden, figured out the trigger, safety switch and gas. I squeezed.
That thing sounded like a rocket. Noise so loud that thinking stoped and those eight blades turned, and bounced, and I was holding back on it, and it bounced and pulled and my feet worked, my legs fought back, the garden looked at least hundred feet wide and two hundred feet long. I played with it, holding up the handles, holding them down, fighting the thing roaring, moving soil, digging the garden up. I was looking each way for what was happening, realizing that within a half an hour, the garden was done. Complete, Finito.
I’ve got more planting to do. Once my arms and legs mend, my back feels normal, my head will turn both directions, and I get my vision back.
Ralph Peck
Photo by Ralph Peck
Claremore, Oklahoma
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