Day 5, Saturday, was not without its adventure. Or should I say, misadventure. When I was taking a break from working on my sermon, I worked in the yard. It actually helps me to think through what I’m trying to preach, and brings some clarity.

Out to work. Saturday’s goal was to work on the front flower bed, getting the weeds out and reworking the brickwork around the bed.

On a side note, I was also going to deal with the bad gasoline problem I had, which was causing problems with my weedeater.

Now, let me be very clear and upfront. I hate weedeaters. I know that everyone uses them, but their design is such that it brings nothing but heartache and trouble. I’ve used them since they first came out in the 1970s, and even witnessed the two inventors of the damn thing, trying it out in a park where I was playing.

I thought: what a great idea.

Then years later… we had one and the trouble began.

What trouble? Weedeaters, and the all the knock offs, all have a sensitivity that demand for the perfect fuel. Then there is the problem of the trimmer line. No matter what type of system one has, the trimmer line is a constant source of trouble.

So let us review: the problems with weedeaters is the need for perfect fuel, and the trimmer line systems. Two of the basic systems of the weedeater are flawed.

This led to me getting help from a man in my church, who knows a lot about them. He has replaced the trimmer feeding head on mine, but the new one was just as troublesome as the old one. He also informed me, my fuel was probably bad and needed to be dumped.

He said I could put it in my car, and get rid of that way.

I was OK doing that with more normal gas can, which had about 4 gallons of fresh gas. And that is what I did, but didn’t get all the gas out.

I set the can down, and went back to work in the yard where I found a Southern Oak growing in the front flower bed. I transplanted it. It’s the second time I’ve tried to transplant a tree in my yard. I was hoping for a different result.

Since I hadn’t poured all the gas out of my big can into my car, I decided to pour the rest into the lawn mower. What I didn’t notice was that the can had heated up and expanded, so that when I inserted into the lawn mower, and manipulated the EPA’s version of a finger torture test, the pressure in the can blasted into the lawn mower, causing geyser of gas to explode all over me.

I spent the next hour cleaning up the mess I made when I ran inside to the shower, the get the gas all over me.

And the tree that I planted, died quickly.

Did I tell you how much I hate weedeaters?

The flower bed I worked on…

The tree that quickly died…