Lessons Learned- Part 1

First lesson learned... do not drive your riding lawnmower over the grass beneath a walnut tree towards the end of the summer season. Let me rephrase that, don't think that by putting the blade setting on high, it will give you the necessary clearance you need to avoid turning your lawnmower into a missile-launching weapon of brown juice staining balls. It will not.

This first lesson leads us to the second BIG lesson... laziness is expensive. If, for example, you were to ride your mower over dangerously tall grass, weeds, and brambles before doing a walkthrough to remove large rocks and tree branches you will end up creating the perfect piece of tractor lawn art. Which leads to the next lesson... changing the blades on the mower- a "How to".

First, the blades. Just a few simple steps... let's get cracking. The directions clearly demonstrate how to remove the blade housing from the belly of the tractor.. we got that, you will too. Follow this with carefully removing the belts.. no problemo. Now turn the blade housing unit upside down and simply unscrew the bolt holding the dulled, bent, and mutilated blade.. right.

Oomph, uggg, **&^%$@, ok... you try, *&^$$@@, what the?..... here, let me try again eeeeee, crap! I just broke the damn socket wrench!!!!!

It is then and there that we realize a little warning label should have been printed saying something like this:

Tractor blades are tightened at the factory using an industrial, super powered, extra-torqued air ratchet by a guy named Popeye which, in turn, will make removing them manually virtually impossible.... thanks for playing.

After a trip to the store for another $15.00 socket, Jul and I continue to fight the beast. We refuse to show up at the local farm store sporting bloody knuckles and a trunk full of tractor parts asking for help. We ARE capable women. We ARE powerful women. We ARE strong women! KICK IT! KICK THE DAMN THING!

What do you know? Tractors respond to violence. Later we learned, from our good friend Rodney, that what we were doing was "Getting Redneck" with the ratchet- a survival method of tool wielding that is the cornerstone of farming construction and maintenance.

So, one blade off... one to go......................
Our attempt at loosening the other blade bolt, even with our Getting Redneck skill, fails. Luckily this blade, although dull, was not bent in the shape of T-square like the other one was. So, after much debate, we decided that we could live with dull. We put the tractor back together and before long, voila... our baby Troy was good to go. Success, no matter how marginal, is sweet.

Tidbits of information for riding lawnmowers:
- blades can be sharpened at local farm stores for a nominal fee (around $8.00) or replaced (ours cost $15.00). We learned the hard way though that bent or warped blades cannot be straightened or sharpened for use again, so try to avoid riding over large projections.
- if you go out and try to start your mower and nothing happens... no lights, no sound, no nothing, then the problem could be the fuse. Ours was a simple two-pronged little thing that was a snap to replace, after, of course, we removed the gas tank to be able to get to it (nice tractor design), and cheap (.86 cents).
- our airless tires that went flat (all four of them right after the thing was brought home) can be fixed with something called Slime. It's a green speckled liquid that forms a coating on the inside of the tire and seals the holes. It worked great except for one minor snag. A special key comes with the bottle to allow you to remove the inner part of the inflation valve stem, something you have to do to be able to pump the Slime into the tire. CHECK FIRST before you leave the store to make sure some jerk didn't steal the key out of the very bottle you buy and take home to save you from lots of cussing and a trip back to the hardware store!
- if you think you're going to outsmart the tubeless tire by putting a tube in it, think again. We tried it and ended up having to slime the tire anyway...uggg.