A new record for me…

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

This spring we set some sort of a record with the amount of rain that fell. Something like 12 inches over the period of several weeks. Every time I thought about mowing our cleared 5 or so acres around the house and shop, it was too wet to mow. Finally on Monday it dried enough to mow and the grass was so high the little dog would disappear when he went out and I couldn’t see the resource pile out at the shop.

Now we have two riding mowers. A rear engine Snapper 24 inch cut that’s 18 years old but still runs like a champ with just normal maintenance oil changes and blade & belt replacements when needed. The other mower a 42 inch cut Cub Cadet 0-turn that I use the most. It’s a couple of years old and I love it.  

I decided to use the Snapper around the shop. I hate wading through knee high grass & weeds to get to it and fight the ticks & chiggers. Here I am mowing away as happy as a lark, when I backed into the bumper of our beater work truck an old ’82 Chevy 4X4 pickup. I didn’t think much about it till I noticed the Snapper smoking blue smoke like crazy.
I parked it and found out I had bent the oil dipstick tube and broke the seal where it goes into the block and oil was spraying all over the engine and exhaust pipe & muffler. The Snapper has a 9hp Briggs & Stratton engine and I figured it took an o-ring for the seal that I could pick up at our local auto parts store, but NOT, it has a rubber seal that screws into the block. I go in the house and get on the internet looking for that seal. No luck at the Briggs & Stratton site, seems the engine is too old for them to list parts for it grrrrr. I found the seal at another online parts supplier and ordered it.

OK, feeling pretty good about myself, I went and fired up the Cub Cadet to finish mowing. I was going by the welding table outside the shop. I completely forgot about a large tractor tube that was laying there in the tall grass. The Cub Cadet has a safety feature (or design flaw don’t know which) that when you hit something it throws the deck belt off that drives the blades. You guessed it, hit that inner tube and sure enough, off came the belt. Being aggravated and muttering expletives that can’t be repeated here, I ran it into the garage and parked it.

I went into the house to cool off and my wife said “threw the belt didn’t it”. Yep and I’m so mad, I’ll fix it tomorrow, because it’s a chore to get that 118 inch belt lined up with the three pulleys and two idlers. When I went out to fix it, I found out that the belt had not only came off the pulleys but had broken too. To replace the belt you have to take the mower deck off.

Back to the internet to look for a belt. There is no Snapper or Cub Cadet dealer within 70 miles from us. I put in the OEM part number from the manual and low & behold our local auto parts store had one in stock. Yay! Replaced the belt and sharpened & balanced the blades while the deck was off.  With a little help from my wife getting the mower deck re-installed, I was able to finish mowing.
Breaking two mowers in the same day is a new record for me.  My wife says typing this many words is another record for me too.

 

[Steve Sells]

I think Frosty has some goats he may be able to rent to you

[Charles R. Stevens]

I am with Steve on this, you have to few critters. The horses and goats do a fine job of keeping the grass down between mowing down the weeds...

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

We call goats Arkansas lawn mowers. Buy em in the spring and BBQ em in the fall.

[Frosty]

We had goats but they're not so good for grass, they're browsers and will keep your: garden, shrubs, trees, etc. trimmed to nubs. Sheep on the other hand keep grass cropped a nice 3/4" or so and spread fertilizer when they deposit it. They wag their tails when they drop berries and scatter them a bit. Goats are a good candidate though, they'll keep the saplings, poison ivy / oak, etc. under control. A couple does and keep the buck separate, you don't want surprise kiddings. Best bet is find a local goat breeder and have them stud your does. Or just buy a couple kids in spring and put them in the freezer in the fall. One of the best things about raising goats is if one of your kids gives you too much trouble you can sell or eat it. BBQ kid is as good as it gets, I don't know of a meat that picks up the flavor of smoke like goat.

Two or three sheep per acre is a reasonable carrying capacity just don't get carried away. Lambs won't be able to eat tall grass so start about when it sprouts. You'll want a herd dog and fences. The Capitol and White House used to have flocks of sheep to keep the lawns groomed. 

If it's good enough for George Washington and Abraham Lincoln what the hay? 

Oh and all the stories about goats standing n cars, eating your prize winning begonias, etc. has a one word solution. FENCES.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Glenn]

A spare belt hanging on the wall is expensive until you break one on a long holiday weekend, with tall grass and more rain coming. Then it becomes a great investment as you are back to cutting grass as soon as you can put it on the deck. Usually they hang on the wall a year or two until you need them.

Plan B is to get the scythe down from the wall, sharpen it a bit, and remember why you bought the riding mower. (grin)

[Charles R. Stevens]

Glenn, I saw an old man and his grandson clearing a ditch bank, kid with the weed eater lost ground to the old man every time he changed string. Took that old man less time to pein his scythe...

 

[Michael]

I pull out the scythe when the grass in the yard gets too tall to mow.  The combination of sunny weeks and rainy weekends and before you know it you've lost the dog in the grass again!

[Frosty]

Nothing beats a scythe for finding dogs lost in tall grass, eh? 

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

Our yard is rough out here in the desert; but the weeds do like the septic tank for some reason....I used a scythe to clear it out and found out the hard way that I had a bone spur in my left shoulder. Shot didn't fix it and so I now have a series of small scars around my shoulder.  Would have been cheaper to buy a riding mower.

[SLAG]

T. P.,

Might lithotripsy,   be an option?

SLAG.

 

[Charles R. Stevens]

Or a goat... 

... good eats after they get the weeds in order.

 

[SLAG]

Senor Stevens,

Goat makes great curry.

Especially West Indian style.

Regards,

SLAG.

[ThomasPowers]

I had a great goat satay in Jakarta!