Meditations on mowing

Whilst reviewing recently published photos I noticed this shot obviously requiring further explanation which you were too shy and polite to ask for
You’ve probably noticed that it bears a resemblance to one of those pre-Victa without-a-motor mowers. Your right of course, in a previous incarnation that’s exactly what it was though by now it was missing a vital component that being the linkage to its human power source also known as the handle. If memory serves me well this was because in those days of innovation and invention when a man needed little more than a hammer and the will to be an inventor this once mower was undergoing metamorphosis into a bailing machine and was here undergoing trials. It was intended to be powered by trained fish though as I recall the fish trainer from Usbekistan had been held up by immigration and missed this golden opportunity. When the water receded there seemed to be little necessity for a bailing machine anymore and thus lacking its mother, poor thing, this invention stalemated. The fish trainer when he arrived was disappointed but found employment in the banana plantations, married a Sikh, and moved to Coffs Harbor. The mower/ bailer badly rusted by its experience found itself relegated to the no longer needed department beside the shed along with assorted drays horse drawn ploughs and other farm detritus, providing defenses for weeds and long grasses where snakes could relax without fearing being trod on. The mower was replaced thankfully by a motorized version though not by a Victa as one might suspect but by a Pope which must have been discounted to Catholics as some sort of reward for faith? I remember long days of labor behind this temperamental brute in the house garden on the farm where I’m sure my mother moved the fences ever outward. I’m sure that somewhere there is photographic evidence of this though I can’t find it. I apologise if I swore and blasphemed using your name Pope you certainly provided good service in both Goolmangar and Sydney where you became an early source of pocket money. It’s just that on hot summer weekends when lawns are at their lushest and overheated engines behave very badly it seems only right that we vent our frustrations at not being great inventors with a few not well chosen words.
This prickle patch was destined to become part of the Pope's domain.