Yeah, you read that right. Pirsig and his motorcycles, that’s fine if you’ve got the time and inclination. But I’ve blown all my money on radio. See here.

Me, I’d never cut the damn grass. It’s a ridiculous thing to be doing. It takes time, is uses fuel, it created greenhouse gas. Imagine that! Creating greenhouse grass to cut your green lawn, a living thing that generates gas necessary for life, is part of the life cycle, etc…

But the Village puts a little note in my door when the lawn gets higher than six inches that says cut it or pay. If you don’t pay, they cut it and bill you. So. Where’s the freedom in that? None. No freedom.

 So every year there’s yard machinery maintenance to do. Since we bough the adjacent lot, which 90 percent grass and a few sick trees, the mowing tasks are challenging. Or they were until I bought a riding lawnmower, aka, garden tractor. It’s got twin bladed and cuts 46 inches. Mowing the lot and the home property takes about 30 minutes.

So I thought I’d put mulching blades on it, since it leaves a hell of a lot of mown grass in its wake. Better to turn that stuff into mulch. That’s about when I saw at our local AG outlet for yahoos who don’t really farm, a nifty mower atv lifter that was on major sale. I got that sucker, and put it together. Pause. Who writes instructions? People that don’t really speak English. But once I zen’ed it out, there it was. Mower up for service! But having tried this thig out in late winter, I actually needed to use it in early spring. In the two weeks between those arbitrary points in time, a tire on the mower went flat. A gizmo that lifts the mower by its tires is useless if a tire must be changed. So back to the AG store. Armed with a cheap scissors jack, I removed the flat. The AG store had a spare, so I bought it. Back on track. Now where’s the book? How DO you change the blades on this thing? Oh. You slide the deck out from under the machine with the machine on a large flat surface. So having it up in the air is only marginally useful. To get the deck off, you need a better wrench set (with extenders and a decent ratchet) than I’ve got. Maybe I’ll find some on sale next season?

There are also a pair of ordinary push mowers. One is a little Weedeater that I bought when I first became a homeowner. It is showing its age. It’s been over one too many hidden bricks. The other is a big Craftsman with a Tecumseh engine that came from the estate of my late parents. Last season, I rebuilt the carburetor. It had gone to the local mower repair shop the season before. They’ve learned how to bill for a rebuild, but actually just get the mower running long enough to have it not run all too soon. Rebuilding it myself enlightened me. Take the mower to the shop and you mow for a season. Rebuild yourself, and you mow forever. And that’s about how long it’s gonna be before I take something back to the mower repair shop.

However.

The little mower began shaking last season. It shook its gastank right off. Where the bolts went, only the mower gods know. It made it to the end of the season after I found some bolts that would hold the tank on, but it was a bone jarring thing to push. It tended to want to sail to the left all on its own.

So just today, I hoisted the little Weedeater into the air with that atv lifter. I see that somebody (ok, it was me) put the blade on upside down. It was facing the wrong direction, therefore, and didn’t reall fit on the pegs that protrude from the shaft. It had shifted off center as result. I straightened that mess out.  Now who do I shake the fist at?