Mowing

 With almost two acres, mowing is a summer fact of life. And with all the spring rain, I've been averaging a mow every five days. It's critical that I have working mowers and a five gallon can topped with fresh gas.

 A few weeks ago I was mowing alongside the meadow, edging into it to cut the weeds and purposely expanding our lawn. That's when I hit a stump. My beloved John Deere (self-propelled walk-behind) stopped with a sickening thump.

 Tom was nearby burning logs and must have heard the commotion. I pulled the mower onto a cut area of the lawn and started it again. It started, all right, but it vibrated so badly I could barely hold the handle. And it ran at a speed I'd call "all out".

 So I called my mower repairman, Jay. We dropped the mower off (thanks to Tom's Prius; it won't fit in the trunk of my Cruze) and waited to hear back. Jay said the crankshaft was bent and he straightened it as best he could. A replacement part would have been $175 "You might be able to use it the rest of the season if you can stand the vibration," he said..

 Well, no I couldn't. And the high speed of the engine drank expensive gas at a frightening rate.

 After mowing a few weeks with it I found that my hands seemed to still be vibrating long after I switched the mower off. Gloves didn't help. The mower was simply unusable.

 Last weekend we looked for an inexpensive replacement. I opted for an entry-level Toro,

 I haven't mowed with it yet. It's been too rainy and now it's too hot.

 End of story? Nope.

 For the past few years I've noticed the Huskee lawn tractor misses and coughs some days when I'm mowing. I never quite figured out what the problem was. But this year it seemed to coincide with the hottest days. Last Saturday I was mowing ... again while Tom burnt limbs and logs ... and the mower started sputtering ... and quit.

 I've found that if I let it sit fifteen minutes or so I can usually get it started long enough to drive it back to the garage. I've had Jay look at it a few times but he didn't have success in finding the problem. I had him pick it up again.

 He mowed his own yard a couple of times with it. He took the cowling off so that he could quickly diagnose the problem when it quit. It didn't, so he called Huskee to see if they had any ideas. They said it was likely heat-related and removing the cowling kept it cool enough to prevent it quitting.

 There's nothing to do for it, Jay said, but mow with the cowling off. He sent me this picture:

 It looks a little like something you'd find in Dogpatch. But since it kept running for him, I suppose I'll mow with it configured that way. He returned it and didn't charge me a thing.

 So here is my current mowing equipment parked in the barn. One brand new mower and one on it's last legs. Can I get through the rest of the season now? Only time will tell.