Capped Off

The final mow of the year.  For a while at least, no more ducking branches, no more pine needle stab wounds, no more worrying about inadvertently chopping up toads and snakes.   The thistle eating finches have flown south.  Soon the grass will be gray and dormant.

I pulled into the garage, wondering if the area over the septic tank may need just one more trim before putting the snow shovel on the tractor.  I dismounted, brushed the pine needles from my butt and noticed the gaping hole where the gas cap ought to be.

Uh oh.

The cap has come off before, presumably the vibrations of the tractor unscrew it.  It has always remained with the tractor though, hanging from a black plastic tether.   This time:  no gas cap, no tether.

Let's see, how to find the missing gas cap.  Retrace the cutting path...but what if the cap, when free of its tether, was flung into a non cut area?  Chances of finding it then, seem awfully bleak.

For three days I looked for the gas cap.  No luck.  Though resigned to having to purchase a new one, I determined to look for it just one more day, then another.  My persistence was rewarded, for the gas cap appeared smack in the middle of a mowed area.  How I could have missed it, I'll never know.

 

 

I suspect my nemesis, the fisher, placed it there for reasons nefarious.