During maybe the latest spring since we moved to our current home in 1993, I worked on my chainsaw then riding mower. I learned about expertise and limits. I wondered about connections with Planet Earth as some U.S. regions turned too cool while up where cold belonged it was too warm. I needed the chainsaw for trees that had fallen in high-wind, springtime “winter” storms. I needed the mower in case grass ever grew again.
As a boy I ruined many an item by taking it apart. I also learned that if you really attend to nuts and bolts and springs and doohickeys amid modest theoretical grasp of what does what, you can sometimes get an “I fixed it!” high.
So: The chainsaw engine won’t turn. I take spark plug out. Engine turns. Plug back in—freeze. Finally I get it: frozen by accumulated unburned oil from gas-oil mix. I drip in raw gas. Pull/flush, pull/flush. Thaw. Back together. Roar! Smoke! Fix-it high. Dead. Gas spurts out the bottom. What?!
Apart again. After 30 years, rotted gas line. Take even more things apart to attach new line. At last: Roar! Smoke!
Fizzle. What! Apart. Broken electrical wire. Solder. Back together. No roar. No smoke. Gas out the bottom. What!
Apart. Ensuring the gas line is permanently connected requires disassembling the (I think) carburetor. Now so many pieces I don’t remember what a chain saw looks like. Gas line attached. Where do those choke pieces go? Memories of where they belong have faded as badly as my 1981 Greek training.
You can tell my dear spouse wonders about priorities but with remarkable maturity forbears judgment. She knows her husband hates to let go of old things, especially now he’s becoming one, and how excited he’ll be if he fixes this old thing.
Another half day goes into turning 50-some pieces back into a chain saw. Roar! Smoke! Run out. Cut cut cut limbs. Huge I-fixed-it high.
Time to get the mower ready. Battery down. Charge. Engine turns. But won’t start. Confident after proving chain-saw expertise, I jump the battery. Roar! Smoke! Silence. Nothing nothing nothing. I’ve fried the electrical system. I will be the customer fix-it shops love: I’ll take it to my friend who fixes just about anything and plead, “Could you fix this thing I ‘fixed’?”
Pride shattered, I think about the strange weather that drew me into these triumphs and tribulations. I ponder how borderline my expertise is, how much I rely on trial and error and vague understandings of how things work. I think of some eight billion of us humans bringing this approach to an entire planet.
This makes me more alarmed about the relentless clues something is wrong Planet Earth appears to be giving us, amid word that the jetstream and Gulf Stream may be turning erratic. Yet countless ones of us whose expertise is no greater than mine with chainsaws or mowers are sure we know what’s happening.
Experts as good at their analyses as my shop friend is at his do confirm danger signals. They tell us that lifestyles like mine, in which even as I try to live lightly on the earth I use chainsaws and mowers and contribute to what is likely the environmental crime of western lawns, feed the vicious cycles. No matter where I’ve traveled this month, the yard-loving and world-destroying engines seem to be buzzing and roaring and whining like never before, as a too-wet spring yields to sizzling summer and we belch yet more poisoning fumes. Whether or not we believe God gave us dominion over the earth (Gen. 1), we likely have the power to demolish it as our home.
My chainsaw-fixing self hopes people who disagree will accept this before we’re all dead. But then my mower-breaking self says hold on. Have some humility: none of us can fully grasp what’s happening or what to do. Take seriously the possibility that together we all figure this out or together we die. Maybe we can start by learning how to help our lawns be more often heaven and less frequently hell for wildlife.
—Michael A. King is publisher and president, Cascadia Publishing House LLC. He writes the column “Unseen Hands” for Mennonite World Review, which published the first version of this post.
How true! I have found myself in that same position. Thank you for a wonderful read and reflection.
We may need to give up our mower and buy some sheep! Seriously, I do need to put down old newspapers and secure them over the worst of my weed patches before I spray my poisons. Doing so re-uses the newspapers and kills the weeds. Congratulations to you for your willingness to tinker, rather than run out and buy more stuff.
How we wonder what we can/can’t do for our environment at this time in our history.
I like the images of ways to care for the earth, Greta. Monarchs are in trouble, but recently a few have been flying around and laying eggs on the milkweed my wife Joan carefully cultivates. Meanwhile nearby a family is turning meadows and hedges that once sheltered wildlife into yet more acres of lawn. As we watched a monarch over this morning’s coffee, we discussed what a miracle for monarchs and other wildlife it could be if millions of us just spent just a little more time cultivating habitat and less time maintaining lawns.