Man vs Machine

I decided to finally break down and buy a lawn mower. For those that don't already know, I live in the middle of a hayfield (literally). I don't have much of anything resembling a yard so a mower was never high on my list. Anything I needed cut I used my tractor and brushhog. After the fire destroyed my brushhog (see: The South40 January edition), it was time to find a mower.

I'm too fat, lazy and just plain don't want to push a mower, so a lawn tractor it was.

I made the trek to Decatur and did a quick bit of comparison shopping between WalMart and Lowe's. Both were about the same but Lowe's had a better selection, brandnames and also had some used mowers. Advantage Lowe's.

I found a lightly used TroyBilt that looked in good shape marked down $200. It had been returned and repaired. I found out the repair was installing a new battery. We cranked it up and it barely ran. I did a quick looksee and found the sparkplug was loose and cracked. HA! I bought the mower and did my best to contain my smugness for burning them so badly in the deal.

Little Sister would be proud of my mad shopping skillz.

I get home, install a new plug and fire that mother up... It barely runs.

F*** me!

I start to question just how great of a deal I got and my wisdom in making it. When all else fails, call for backup. The call went out to BrotherInLaw. Luckily, he was'nt doing anything important so I loaded up and headed over.

I gotta tell ya, he's a freaking miracle worker with machinery. All we he did was remove the bowl from the carburator and put it back on. Varrooooom! The thing runs like a hotrod. (Told ya he was a miracle worker.)

So I head back to The South 40 and mow for about 5 minutes before it starts to vibrate badly. I mean whole lotta shakin' goin' on. I jack up the mower and the blades look like a pair of pretzles. Apparently my new TroyBilt is not as tough as I anticipated. Nor is it a replacement for a brushhog. The small brush and weeds I was mowing twisted my blades in a way Mrs. Baird would have been proud of.

Tomorrow I get to buy a new set of blades. Remind me again why I needed a lawnmower?