When Bill and I applied for our Site Steward positions at Buffalo Bill State Park, the job description said we would clean bathrooms, water lawns where irrigation doesn’t reach, mow grass as needed to keep the campground neat and well manicured, and special projects as assigned… However, what we found ourselves doing the first two weeks we were here was the “special project as assigned” of taking down snow fences, and pulling out the fence poles as well. Very heavy, backbreaking, labor intensive, work to say the very least…
Finally, after two weeks, our park manager asked if we were being worked too hard, and I spoke right up and said YES!! So we were reassigned duties to line up better with what our Site Steward positions should be, and the full-time, much younger, maintenance crew were assigned the task of taking down the remaining snow fences…
This is my very own (for the summer) little John Deere riding mower. I LOVE it!! If the seat is wet from rain the night before, I just put a big plastic trash bag over it and I’m set and ready for a great fun time mowing grass.
The one chore I didn’t have to do around our house when I was growing up was mow the lawn. So of course, I’ve never been around a John Deere ridding mower ever in my life… But it didn’t take long after my little training lessen our lead man, Dale, gave me before he said he thought I was ready to go on and mow some grass on my own…Then he left me to my new job telling me he would be back at the shop about 5 miles away… I was so excited to be on my own on my little John Deere.
Until I tried to mow under a fence and wrapped the back wheel right around the fence post and got stuck! My little John Deere mower wouldn’t move forward or backwards.. Oh, no!
I had to run and go flag Bill down. He was on his “really big” John Deere mower working in a field across the way from me.
Bill came and tried to get my mower unstuck, but he didn’t have anything to lift or pull my mower away from the fence. We asked the two full-time maintenance workers that were taking down the snow fences if they could help us but they didn’t have anything that would work to pull my mower off the fence either.., So we had no choice but to call our lead man, Dale, and ask him to bring something to pull my mower out from the fence post I had the back tire wrapped around…
When Paula, one of the full-time workers, said she would call Dale for me… I said “I bet this isn’t going to go well for me…” She laughed and said “oh Dale loves stuff like this to happen to woman because it gives him stories to tell and something to laugh about, and it will keep him off of me for a while…” I smiled and said “Oh, I’m sure I will give him lots of stories to tell and things to laugh about before this summer job is over…”
Dale came, laughed, and pulled my John Deere mower off the fence and I continued on my way. I got this whole area mowed, and was feeling pretty good about my job being completed fairly well, when Paula came by and said now I had to go and rake up all that grass I just mowed.
I told Paula that Dale said I didn’t need to rake it, but she insisted that I did so I raked it all up into lots of big piles…
When I was just finishing up the raking, Dale came back and asked me what I was going to do with all that grass now that I had it all raked up? I said “I guess someone will have to come and pick it up in a truck. He asked me why I raked it and I told him Paula said it needed to be raked or it will kill the grass and it makes it harder to mow the grass the next time.. Dale said since Paula told me to rake the grass he thought picking up all the piles sounded like a good job for Paula… I don’t think Paula is going to be happy to hear that. But, I couldn’t stick around to find out because our morning shift was over, and we had to leave. On Tuesday’s Bill and I work a split shift. Â Morning in the campground, and 3-7 p.m. at the Buffalo Bill Dam Visitor’s Center. I don’t usually look forward to working split shifts…but I have to say I was fine with leaving early today… I didn’t want to stay around to watch any drama when Paula found out she had to pick-up all that grass…
I’m not here for drama… all I want to do now is ride my little John Deere mower.. I just LOVE it… 🙂
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