Accomplishment

Being out here at the new farm by myself leaves me with tasks that otherwise I would leave to my husband or more likely my daughter's boyfriend.  My husband is not the handiest person.  As a matter of fact, he won't even attempt so much as looking into the problem as opposed to ignoring it all together.  Such was the case of my push lawn mower.  Before I moved the pull cord on the mower had broken.  I asked him several times to fix it.  On one of those occassions, daughter's boyfriend was over and jumped in to offer to fix it himself which he did.  Last week, Farm Girl snapped the cord again while trying to start it.

I texted my husband about the problem but didn't ask him to repair it as I knew that wasn't going to happen.  Sure enough, his response was that he would bring me the riding lawn mower instead.  Though I would rather have the riding mower, he lives on a much bigger property then I and needed it much more than me.  Besides, it would be a pain to load on the back of his pickup truck and the added weight would put a strain on his already ailing truck which he is having some maintenance issues.  I told him it would be much easier for him to just fix the push mower, but of course he elected to ignore that and bring the riding mower.

My farm was badly trashed by previous tenants and then sat empty for a year before I moved in.  The result has been not a day goes by that I do not find trash or glass become exposed in the ground.  The yard hasn't seen a roller in many many years I'm certain causing a very bumpy mowing experience.  On my second day, I hit something and the pulley and blade came apart from the deck.  That was great, now I had no mower.  I of course texted the husband about the problem and told him he needed to come and pick it up and transport it to a repair shop.  That of course did not happen.  Not that I truly thought it would, but I do hope that his responsible and practical side would eventually show themselves.

A week later with a yard beginning to become overgrown, I new I had to do something.  So I tackled what was the easiest of the two problems.  The push lawn mower.  I bought a new pull cord, sat down at my computer and pulled up youtube. Of course my lawn mower was slighty different from the ones depicted in the videos and did not come apart as instructed, however simply adding the make of my mower brought up the exact instructions I needed.  I removed the case (with the use of a ratchet no less), removed the cord housing, repaired the spring which had been bent and not retracting the cord, replaced the cord with my new one, put it all back together and is up and running once again.  I have to tell you how very proud I am of myself.  I'm the type of person that hates asking for help and if I can manage it myself, the better.  Now that I am feeling mighty accomplished, I'm going to hit youtube on how to replace the broken pulley and blade on the riding mower.