I’m the yard boy at home. For both houses. Could have been for two homes and a fraction, until the sighting of a snake while whipper-snipping promptly ended the fraction at the farm. But there is one interesting feature with the whipper-snipper. The battery requires nine hours for a full charge which produces a whole 20 minutes of snip-time. Bet you’re thinking, “That’s what I call efficiency!” But the ‘efficiency’ escalates with the reality that one of the batteries gives power for a mere four minutes at times. Only it doesn’t indicate when it’s going to be four or twenty minutes, or rather the 18 minutes it actually produces given that the last two minutes is a loud whirring sound as the snipping head spins in futility. As you create the details for what possibly transpires each time four minutes happens, I’ll fast forward to yesterday.
It’s a rare occasion when the two batteries perform perfectly, but they did yesterday, giving their full 20, or more correctly 18 minutes, at one yard, but leaving it far from complete. So it’s imperative that both batteries perform if I’m to finish the edging today. But after 12 hours of charging, the light was still on, indicating that the charge was not full. One charger, two batteries, a few hours. I got up at midnight to switch the batteries only to find the light was still on. Resignedly I switched to the second battery, lamenting my broken sleep, and that tomorrow, the lawns would still be decorated with tall blades of green sprinkled with yellow flowering buds.
This morning I interrupted the peaceful neighbourhood with loud zzzzs of battery power. At the same time the grass and uninvited plants surrendered their tenancy of my soil and flipped in defeat, limp and fallen. Most of them that is. Eighteen minutes had kicked in. Pulling twigs from my hair, brushing dirt from my white work shirt with its black embroidery on the cuffs and collar, limping from a sharp something lodged in my runners, I headed inside for the shower. Certainly having long hair and doing yard work necessitate more than 18 minutes efficiency from any tool, I argued to the air. Taking the dead battery to the charger, I yanked the other one, its light still showing that it was not ready, and exchanged their positions.
I’m not sure why, but instead of the shower, I set the not-fully-charged battery in the whipper-snipper and went out in the drizzling rain to eke out the four minutes it might produce. And four minutes it produced. And four more, and another four, then another four. The battery with its light that indicated that it had no power whipped and snipped, buzzed and zzzzed in merriment.
And the Lord whispered to this yard boy, ‘It’s not by sight only. Hidden power. Latent power. Don’t gauge a situation by what you see. There’s more coming.” I encourage you friend, to walk by faith and not by sight.
