This afternoon, my daughter and I headed into town, first to pick up the riding mower, then to pick up fixings for a wiener roast.
Since the mower was too far gone to fix everything, it cost less than $45 for the work that was done to put the drive chain back on and tighten things as much as he could.
As I paid for it, I asked for help to load it into the van, then went out to set up the ramps. The woman who processed the payment came out, while a guy from the shop started up the mower and drove it over.
The woman that was helping me expressed surprise that it would fit in the van at all. After the guy drove the mower over and lined it up with the ramps, he came over as I showed them the drop on the inside. The guy asked if I was sure it would fit, and when I said yes, he thanked me for warning about the drop…
Then got back on the mower and started driving up the ramp!
Thankfully, the back wheels got a bit hung up on the bottom edges of the ramp, because he was basically ignoring my hand waving and couldn’t hear me saying not to drive it up until he was right next to me. Once I told him he couldn’t drive it up (how did he expect to fit under the roof???), he complained a bit. Then he and the woman started pushing from the back, while I steered and pushed from the side.
They had a hard time of it. The girls and I have loaded it into the van a few times, and that was before we had the nice new ramps by brother bought for me, and I don’t remember having that much of an issue.
Of course, once it got to the top, the front wheels dropped and the mower could no longer go forward. I told them that this was where I had to go inside, and climbed in through the side door.
In the end, I ended up picking up the front and and hauling it the rest of the way in, because they didn’t seem to have issues with the back end.
The guy did compliment me on the ramps as I was putting them in with the mower, though, so I told him where my brother got them from. 🙂
The mower and the ramps fit just fine in there!
As I write this, it’s still sitting in the van. I’m about to go help get set up for the wiener roast, and I’ll snag the girls to help unload it while we’re out.
I am so looking forward to it! We’re just going hot dogs, but it’s been more than a year since we’ve used the fire pit. It’s going to be awesome!
While putting away the push mower yesterday, I was going to take the time to start up the riding mower and see what I could see. I always push the mower out of the garage before starting it, but I never got it all the way out. I could hear a different sound, like something was dragging underneath. I pushed it forward again, and it was still there.
I did not notice the sound when I pushed the mower to the garage, but there were plenty of other noises that would have drowned it out.
So I let it be for now.
This morning, I found an email from my brother. He had emailed me an electronic copy of the user’s manual. Having looked over it first, he wrote that – based on my description of what happened – he figured the drive chain either broke or fell off, then asked if I could get photos from above and below.
As soon as I read “drive chain”, I knew that was what I was hearing.
When I finished my rounds, I went in to try and get some photos. There’s nothing to see from above, and from below, it was a matter of sticking my phone under, and various angles, and using voice commands to take pictures. I’m not able bodied enough to get onto the ground to see. After the first few pictures, though, I could figure out where I needed to concentrate on.
Yup. There it was.
The manual had information about how the chain can become loose over time, and how to tighten it.
Which we have no way of doing.
I mean, theoretically, someone could get down on the ground and do it by feel, but if I’m going to do something like that, I want to be able to see. Not just the chain, but to know if there are other potential problems under there.
One of the things we’re going to need to build is a platform we can roll the mower up onto, so we can get under to work on it. We could certainly use various things we have to lift it, but there’s safety to take into account, too. Whatever we use has to be able to hold the weight and keep things from rolling around. We do have jack stands that could be used, but… well, my late brother was killed when the car he was working under, fell on him after a jack stand failed. So, I’m a little more paranoid about such things these days.
I’ve already told my brother he’s not allowed to come fix it. LOL He’s got so much going on, I don’t want to be another burden for him.
So it will wait until we can take it in to the shop as I was already planning to do, later in the month.
At least the chain does not look broken, and it seems like it will be a relatively easy fix.
When things cooled down enough, I took advantage of the temperatures to break out the riding mower and try and get at least the lawn around the house done, before the predicted rains. Thanks to my brother, it was running fine.
And then it wasn’t.
This time, it happened while I was in the middle of mowing. I’d gotten the South yards done, and was working on the West yard, when it simply coasted to a stop. The engine was running fine, like before. I checked, and the tire pins were fine. I could see nothing to cause this to happen again.
It had already started to rain a bit while I was out there, so I quickly pushed it into the garage and brought out the push mower.
Now, the push mower has issues, too. The control for the governor seized up, so my brother rigged up a manual control directly to the governor. It has one speed only. The prime pump doesn’t work, so in order to start it, I have to open the filter cover on the side and splash a bit of fuel directly into the opening under the filter. Once it has been started, as long as I refill the gas tank before actually running out of fuel, I don’t have to do this again. It’s also difficult to start in general. If it’s been used for a long time, it eventually just won’t restart at all for several minutes. But it does the job.
Until now.
Yeah. The push mower, too.
Did I mentioned there’s only one speed? That is supposed to be “high”. Today, it seemed rather sluggish, though.
Then it stalled, at almost the exact same spot the riding mower stopped moving.
Thankfully, I was able to get it going, and keep it going. until the West yard was finished. I was just starting to work on the North side when it stalled again.
This time, it wouldn’t start again. I was not about to re-injure my wrist trying, either.
So that got put away, too.
I gave the riding mower another once over while I was in the garage, and noticed the one tire that turned out to be the cause of the problem last time, seemed low on air. I tried to see if there was something on the tire to tell me what the max pressure was, and found nothing – but the tire looks like it’s starting to crack on the sides. I pumped it up a bit, anyhow, then checked the other tire, which didn’t seem to need any air, and also didn’t have the cracks the first one did, though it does have the beginnings of them.
So while I was already planning to take it in for basic maintenance and to get the blades sharpened, it might need a new back tire, too.
And if it needs that, what else will they find when they check it out? While I’ve tried to be careful of the mower, there were still times when I hit hidden rough spots, and let’s face it; I’ve really worked that thing over the past two years! It may have been completely refurbished, but it’s still older, and a lot more delicate than newer lawn tractors.
Since I also need to make another deposit at the garage to get my mother’s car fixed, there isn’t a lot of room in the budget for much more. I didn’t try it again after pumping the tire, though, with the weather starting to turn.
I’m just tired.
Tired.
Drained.
Wasted.
I’m tired of having to make do with old and breaking equipment. I’m tired of even the good stuff breaking down so weirdly like this. I’m tired of finally being able to set some funds aside to go towards replacing the roof, only to have to dip into it because something else has broken down. I’m tired of having to pick and choose what we can fix, what we can replace, and what we have to make do with. It just doesn’t seem to end, and in the back of my mind, there’s always that touch of resentment.
It didn’t need to be this way.
My parents had a fully equipped and operational farm. They had tools. They had all sorts of supplies and parts and so many other things. Things that would have been very useful in maintaining the place. Things that were in good shape and working, only to either grow legs and walk away while this place was empty, or get broken through misuse.
Usually, I have no problem letting go of this. I tend to be the sort that recognizes that things like this happen, but I don’t waste my time or energy fussing over them. I don’t have the spoons to waste on that sort of thing. It isn’t worth it.
But every now and then, things like this happen, and it just feels so frustrating and tiring. It’s hard not to feel defeated.
I know I’ll be feeling better after a while. My daughters are making supper, and a good meal followed by a shower and good night’s sleep are just what the doctor ordered.
But for now, I’m just so tired.
Tomorrow, I am going to dip into our contingency fund and buy a new push mower.
Until then, I’m going to borrow my husband’s bath chair and shower off the layer of bug spray that kept me from being eaten alive while I was mowing! 😀
Of course, I looked around at anything I could see to try and figure out why it stopped. The only thing I couldn’t do is look under it, because we can’t see under there without lifting it or removing things, and it’s too heavy to lift more than a corner. It’s not something we can just pick up at one end/side and tilt, either, due to the design.
So I pushed it into the garage and left it. The plan for mowing still involves using the push mower to get into areas the riding mower can’t, so I saw no issue with letting it wait until the end of the month, when we were already planning to take it in for some general TLC.
Then I got an email from my brother. He had needed to pick up a ball hitch, so he’d bought an extra one for out riding mower. This way, we can use it to pull the trailer, when that’s all fixed up.
In my response, I mentioned what happened with the riding mower.
Well, my brother – being the awesome person that he is – decided to pop over today. They were already on the way when my SIL phoned us to let us know they’d be going straight to the garage, and not going to the house (practicing physical distancing for my husband’s health), to install the ball hitch and check out the riding mower.
By the time I realized they were here and joined my brother at the garage, he was already done installing the ball hitch. He had also given the mower a once over, and couldn’t see anything wrong. Since I was there, he asked me to give it a try, while he watched. So I pushed it out of the garage, first, then tried starting it.
It wouldn’t start.
Then my brother noticed I forgot to turn the shut off valve on the fuel line. 😀 He turned it for me.
Which is when he saw it.
The wheel was almost off the axle!!!
The back wheels are held in place by a bolt that runs through the axle, like a pin. We had to look at the other side to even remember what it was supposed to look like.
We propped the corner of the mower up on whatever we could find to support the weight, and my brother managed to hammer the wheel back on. Then he tried to make sure that the holes were still lined up.
They were, but the narrow screw he was using to check, couldn’t go through.
This was the culprit.
This was still stuck inside.
So, somewhere in our lawn, is the head of a bolt, and a nut, still on the other end of the bolt.
After much scrounging in the garage by all of us, my brother found another nut and bolt the right size, and got it on.
Once that was all fixed, he got me to test it out again.
The mower runs fine now.
Basically, once the wheel got loose, the mower acted as if it were in neutral, regardless of what gear it was in. When I stopped the mower to talk to my daughter, my getting on and off of it must have loosened the wheel just enough to trigger this.
Which is awesome, because if it didn’t have that fail safe, I would have kept on going right up until the wheel fell off, never realizing there was a problem. Just pushing it to the garage is probably why it was as far off the axle as it was. If my brother hadn’t picked up a hitch and decided to come over to install it, we likely would not have discovered it, until it fell off as we moved it around to load it into the van at the end of the month.
Neither of us had even thought to check the wheels as a reason the mower stopped moving. The only reason my brother spotted it at all, was because I’d forgotten about the shut off valve on the fuel line, and he turned it for me. That’s when he could see the bright, shiny, silver part of the axle that no longer had wheel over it. It I had turned it from my seated position, I wouldn’t have seen it. If it had been the other wheel, neither of us would have seen it.
Sometimes, it amazes me when so many tiny things line up like that.
The awesome thing is, my brother has once again saved the day! 😀 The riding mower moves again.
I also got to see my SIL for the first time in way too long. She is allergic to cats, so we were planning to visit their place for a change, when the pandemic lockdowns started and all such plans went poof. So it was really, really great to be able to see them both. I just wish it could have been for longer!
And for just a visit, and not to fix yet another thing. 😀
Well, it’s a good thing I was planning on using the push mower more.
While using the riding mower in the inner yard today, I stopped at one point, to go over to talk to my daughter, who was using the push mower. When I returned to the riding mower, it started just fine, but wouldn’t move. !! There were no issues at all before. One minute, it was working fine. The next, no go. Forward or reverse.
Well, we were planning to take it in for Maintenance next month, anyhow…
After doing most of the inner yard, I switched to cutting the outer yard, as there was so much of it that hasn’t been done at all this year. I quickly stopped using the bag to collect grass clippings. It filled so quickly, and the mower just doesn’t like to restart very well.
That did mean I was able to reclaim more areas of the outer yard.
For the first time since we’ve moved here, I was able to clear the area in front of this old shed.
Do you see where the colour changes from nice and green, to more brown?
While the clippings blur the line a bit, there is a clear demarcation where the colour changes. The brown is where I had not been able to mow, until today. Where I’d been able to mow for the past couple of years, the grass is green, thick and healthy. Where I hadn’t been able to get in with the riding mower (and it’s so rough, I still won’t be able to use it there), the grass was choked out by its own thatch.
I’ve now been able to reclaim pretty much all of the outer yard on this side, and I’ve started to reclaim the area leading to the collapsing log house and chicken coop.
I feel like I should have been making hay! The grass was starting to go to seed.
I will work on this area tomorrow, weather willing. With the push mower, I’ll be able to reclaim even more of the outer yard, little by little. I’ll be mowing a path to the other gate, as before, but will have to be very careful as I go beyond what I’d been able to do with the riding mower. Who knows what is hiding in that tall grass! Rocks and rough ground is one thing, but there could be chunks of wood, metal and small kitchen appliances, for all we can tell.
Since I was walking back and forth so much, I took advantage of it and opened up Pokemon Go on my phone. There is a feature in the game where you have a “buddy” Pokemon that walks with you. While it is your buddy, the game records distance, even when the game is not active. After you walk a certain number of kilometers, your buddy “finds” a candy.
The buddy I have right now is a Meltan. While most buddies need to be walked for 2, 5 or 10 km before finding a candy, Meltan needs to be walked for 20km. Once a candy is found, the meter restarts for the next 20km.
Based on the distance measured in the game, I walked at least 12 km this afternoon. And that doesn’t count the distance this morning.
My phone came with one of those “health” apps that I can turn off, but can’t get rid of. These apps irritate me, since they all basically measure “health” as “lose weight”. It doesn’t matter how good your other health measures are, or how much exercise you get, if you haven’t lost weight, you’re a failure. It does, however, have a pedometer. I’m curious to know just how many kilometers I am actually walking while doing basic yard work.
Before we moved out here, a tree in the spruce grove had fallen onto the fence. I have no idea when it happened, but it had to have been very recent. My older brother, spotting it, grabbed a bucksaw and cut the tree at the fence, then propped the fence wire up with a stick, then neatly tucked the top of the tree, now on the outside, against the fence.
When I was cleaning along that fence line last year, I moved the tree top away from the fence line to give me space. I just dragged it over into the space between fence and ditch and left it there until I could get back to it.
That section of tree has been sitting there ever since.
A couple of nights ago, it got cold enough overnight for the furnace to turn on, only to hit highs in the 20’s, half a day later!
Yesterday was supposed to be my day to finally get the mower out – which required taking the snow blowers out first, taking out the riding mower, then moving the snow blowers to the back of the shed until winter. I also made room by taking out the two broken push mowers my brother had tested. I stuck them in another shed at the old hay yard. There used to be a tractor in there, but that is one of the things that disappeared before we moved in.
Once the mower was cleared, I topped up the oil, filled the gas tank, checked it over and…
The Re-Farmer 