Suicide Mower

We bought our first mower when we bought our first house in 1999. It was a Poulon Push mower from Home Depot. Nothing fancy really. Our yard was pretty modest, and it suited us just fine. We sold that house in August 2003 and built a new one on a much bigger lot in 2004. The mower was just about kaput and I didn;t think it would hold up to our half acre much longer so for Father's Day that year I bought Pete a John Deere riding mower, and the old Poulon was parked in the shed.

That John Deere served us well. It went round and round. It took kids for rides. It chopped up crazy tall weeds and vines when we needed to clear the way to park the boat in the yard. It slowly died...Parts fell off, the cover broke in pieces, until suddenly KAPOW!!! Bye bye... :(

Poor Petey back to the pusher. I had forgotten that the choke on the mower had broken some time ago, until I hear the VROOOOOOOOOOOM........
VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM...
VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
as it revs high and low. I just had to laugh a little to myself just to hear it (hehe).

But after sitting idle for so many years, that thing had a mind of it's own! Pouting and throwing fits, breaking down and spitting out its pieces one at a time.

It vibrated SO much, that the bolts holding the top part down would wiggle right out. We lost a couple and Pete had to improvise with new bolts. Perhaps that's why the gas cap would pop off occasionally. So he used a piece of wire or a stick or something to hold it down. Perhaps that was attached to the piece of wire that was holding the choke open so it wouldn't stall out at the end of the revving cycle.

One day I came home to a halfway mowed lawn, and thought hmmm.... Wonder what happened today. Apparently, the mower SPIT OUT the spark plug. KAPOW! Pete says, hmmm... I wonder what that was? Tried to start it again and looked around to see what was wrong. Wow, I wonder where it went? COULD NOT FIND IT ANYWHERE!!! HAHAHAHAH!!

SO- after he figured out what kind of plug to replace it with (It is a 10 year old mower by now), he used some kind of new contraption to make sure the spark plug would not fly out again.

The deck on the back started to rust out, so he covered that with some duct tape so that the mowed clippings didn't fly out the top and catch fire. It was all holding together. I think he got a few full mows out of it.

Saturday, he went out to play with the lawn again. I was back in my sewing/soaping/scrapbooking room, tinkering with some new goodies I got. He made a few rounds past my window, (Vroooooooooooooooooom....vroooooooooooooooooooooooom...vroooooooooooooooooom) and suddenly it stops. (hehe) Part of me expects it to just start up again, but this time it does not.

About 10 minutes later, Pete goes by the window, and starts pushing the (dead) mower across the yard. I open the window to have a chat.

"What's going on?" I ask.
"I don't think I can fix it." He says.
"What Happened?"
"The gas tank fell off" he says. "FELL OFF!"
"hmmm...." as I look out the window at this sad contraption that has been TRYING to die.
For all the stuff holding it together, I can't see much of the original creature, but it looks pretty sad.

So the spark plug spitting, super revving mower is dead. RIP Poulon. RIP.