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Earlier this summer, I had an unfortunate episode with my fertilizer spreader.

I must have had the toggle set too aggressively, because two days later my grass began dying in a strange pattern.

The full extent of the damage was a 10-inch-wide stripe of brown death that stretched for about 50 feet in the shape of the letter 'U’ in an otherwise lush, green yard.

“Ah, no. ... It’s not a crop circle. Mac just has a hard time with the spreader.”

My wife, Michele, knows I have a long history of unfortunate mishaps when it comes to yard equipment.

Over the years, I’ve confessed to mowing over tree branches, doggie chew toys, children’s shoes, tennis balls, golf balls, flip flops, a garden hose, a sprinkler nozzle, rocks, a toy shovel, a large black pipe next to our water meter that I’ve hit so many times that the top gleams a fresh bright brass color each time the mower blade slices into it, and on one particularly lively instance, one of those three-pronged metal gardening trowels.

Michele also is familiar with a nasty and well-camouflaged tree stump in our backyard that has become my nemesis. Stumps don’t normally attack or even move, but I think this one has it in for me. Some days it will crouch low, allowing my mower to glide effortlessly right over the top. At other times, the impact of the blade meeting stump-wood can stop the engine cold.

The first time it happened, I went to restart the mower, only to find that the impact had bent the shaft so badly the mower wobbled and shook like one of those vibrating belt machines from the 1960s that women used to jiggle their way to a slimmer figure.

The damage was so bad I had to give the mower away, buy a new one, and then — I’m embarrassed to say — I hit the same stump a month later, forcing me to buy yet another mower. (Michele refers to it as the “Three Mower Summer.”)

On another occasion, I mowed over a nest of yellow jackets. As the insects swarmed all around, I was stung on the ankle. The pain was so unexpected and sharp, I turned loose of the handle, began slapping myself all over and ran screaming toward the house.

Despite all this, I really enjoy working in the yard. I like getting out in the fresh air, attempting to make my yard look presentable. In fact, just last night I finished mowing when Michele said, “It sounded like the mower was making a funny 'chug-chug’ sound.”

“Well,” I said, swallowing hard. “The muffler fell off the mower.”

“Ahhh,” she said.

“I may be able to put it back on, only I can’t tell yet,” I said. “There was a cloud of black smoke when it fell off, and the muffler itself was so hot it was smoking, so I couldn’t pick it up.”

“So what did you do with it?” she asked.

“Left it there.”

“Smoking in the grass? Won’t the lawn catch fire?”

I tried to sound confident as I said, “Do I look like someone who would set fire to the lawn?” All the while I was actually thinking, “Fire may be the only disaster that hasn’t befallen the Lane lawn yet.”

But there are still a few weeks of summer left.

Contact Mac Lane at maclane@ northstate.net.