Mowing and groaning

One of the challenges of having a country property is keeping the grass mown. That’s sometimes much easier said than done when the areas we mow have been reclaimed from patches of weeds or former pastures.
We have several acres of lawn, pasture and hiking trails that we mow. At first we did it all with a walk-behind mower until Chris broke down three years ago and purchased a riding mower. That made the job go much faster and also expanded our mowing area. But there are still plenty of places that the riding mower can’t go and you still need the smaller mowers for trimming.
This spring the mowing season started early because of the warm and wet weather that was perfect for grass growing. Unfortunately the mowers weren’t ready for the season. Over the years we have accumulated quite a collection of walk-behind mowers – some ours, some belong to Chris’s parents – and they have gradually broken down. Last year we had 1.5 of them running. The 0.5 comes from one of them sometimes starting and sometimes not.
We were down to a shaky 1 when the 0.5 did not start at all several weeks ago. The 1 started and we got most of the lawn mowed before it quit. Unfortunately the grass that was starting to get a foot long was still growing.
What about the riding mower, you might ask? Good question. The answer is long, but here’s the condensed version. Last year Chris ran over a small steel fence post with the riding mower. The post wrapped around the blade. A trip to the shed and the use of a cutting disc freed the post and miraculously, the mower still worked. Sort of.
This spring when it came time to sharpen the blades, Chris realized that the only thing holding one of the blades on was a bolt. The mandrel that the blade fits over was completely rounded off – the result of the fence post accident.
Chris purchased an extended warranty when he bought the mower, but of course the part that broke “was not covered.” The labor to fix it would be covered, but it would take three weeks before an appointment could be scheduled.
Watching grass grow might be more interesting than listening to Chris’s parts tale of woe, but it took nearly four weeks and five orders of parts before the mower was fixed. Of course if he had listened to Sherry and had a “professional” repair the mower in the first place, the repair probably would have been done earlier but that’s not how do-it-yourself hobby farmers operate.
Meanwhile, the grass was so long Chris had to use a pasture mower pulled behind a tractor to mow some of it.
The other five mowers were taken to the repair shop to be fixed. Our plan is to have lots of back-up mowers to get us through the mowing season. We’ve stimulated the parts economy plenty. It’s time to cut grass. Even if we have to get out the scythe!