Mower #2. A week later after seeing mower #1 on what I thought was it logical 'death bed' I see the rotary "no maintenance, will never need gas, what can go wrong, human powered mower green eco cool machine" at a box store on sale. I bought it. Also, thinking about a radio garden guy clinic at the time saying that "With this kind of mower" ... my super simple human powered unit " it is better for saint augustine grass" which sealed the deal for me at the time and it seemed cheap at $120 or so. I tried it, liked it, but it took more work to use to mow the yard instead of the gas powered mower to the right. Instead of getting the good one fixed, I just keep using the human powered mower as it "took to much time to get the other fixed" and it "might be expensive to repair" season after season. Ugh. I now know I made a mistake in logic and reason year after year.
Mower #3. Fast forward three or four years. My neighbor down the street was moving. He was getting rid of stuff and said "Hey, I sell my mower for $40.00". I bought it too. Now for three years I have had three mowers. My whole thing was with the first I did not want to take the time to go get mower #1 fixed and it was probably dead anyways. It got easier to mow the yard with mower #3 and it took about 20 to 30 minutes less time on average with the grass mower than my "eco friendly" mower #2. Sometimes using my echo friendly mower would take an hour longer or two longer to mow the yard as result of having to go over the yard twice, as human powered mower #2 did poorly when grass was really tall -- being a couple inches over normal mow height.
Resolution. Well, with a buddy and his wife getting a new place and no lawn mower, I thought this would be a great impetus for me to get mower #1 fixed, which is the best most feature rich mower of the three addressed today and working. The cost $65 to clean the carburator, air filters, drain oil and all done in less than 2.5 hours was well worth it. That was it. James the repair man also sharpened the blade and I had a new spark plug, that I had been holding on to for the last few years when I was "going to fix that mower fixed or send it to the grave". Today, Mower #1 worked like a charm. James simply said. "Bud, oil coming out of the air filter is normal when the mower is turned to the side and the fluids mix up together". All that stress, all that work for something I should have done long ago and the mower did not even need any kind of major overhaul or work ... it just needed some simple maintenance.
Realization. My goofball, self also did not realize until today again how efficient having a bagger is. Fast forward a bit to leaves falling right now. You now it is easier to catch leaves in a bagger than it is to rake those stinkers up?... It is late June and my birch trees are already shedding leaves. My yard is clean. Now my project is to get rid of the two other mowers I really don't need. The outcome of this is for me is to: 1) keep things simple, 2) fix what's broken 3) use what I have and consider the cost of storing a backup or backup to the backup when giving something away like two extra mowers away or sell is mutually beneficial. There are so many things to this it is hard to fit in one page...
BTW, ironically enough last year I took an hour or two to change the mower blade out on the Mower #3 and probably would have been better served by getting Mower #1 fixed. :)
Blessings,
Steven
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