Well, my Hatrack friends are pretty awesome too, but this time I'm talking about REAL LIFE friends.
My best friend from work, and her husband, just GAVE me their "old" riding mower!
See -- most of you know I have a very large area to mow here. My riding mower, which was given to me after my dad died (it was his) is now nearly 30 years old. I have done everything in my power to try to keep it chugging along. But now it is impossible to buy parts for, and I blew up the transmission this year (it was the only part I had not yet replaced on the thing!). So I was down to one push mower (22" cut standard Wal-Mart variety) and my tractor/bush hog (which is okay for big areas, but does a pretty ragged job. Add that on top of all the rain we've had this year, and my place was looking pretty sorry.
So my best friend from work, Patty, decided that for her husband's birthday she was going to buy him a brand-spankin' new John Deere fancy rider. And she did. After talking it over with him, their family decided to give me (free!) their "old" rider -- a Montgomery Ward Signature 2000, 42" in cut, 7 speed transmatic transaxle beauty with a 18 hp Briggs & Stratton twin power motor! With electronic ignition! It is huge! Even my 6'4" son looks right at home on it (and now he WANTS to mow!).
(in comparison, my old mower was a 8 hp, 3 speed Gambles mower with about a 32" cut, pull start, etc.)
I just got it today and it is so absolutely cool! Just awesome! I am SO excited (I'll bet you couldn't tell!!)
Friends are such a wonderful blessing!
Farmgirl
edit: by the way, I used preschooler talk in the thread title just to throw off Kama in her English studies....
posted
That's awesome! Friends are quite useful. I remember when dad and I just moved to the farm, it was mid-feburary, our second day on the farm dad decides that he needs to turn the u-haul around...we've got a huge pasture...the ground was frozen six feet down in Indiana, it should be that way in Oregon too.
WRONG
Fully loaded uhaul sank four feet into the ground. We had a friend that lived nearby (that my dad knew from before...thank goodness) who came over, he just laughed and we got shovels out with wood boards, our neighbor who we hadn't met before comes over to see what's up, takes one look and goes back to get his tractor and pulls us out. :: giggles :: Aye, friends are wonderful. Good family friends are very wonderful, they make the world a place worth living. Satyagraha
Posts: 359 | Registered: Jun 2001
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So, after mowing some properties with my friend here in KC, I understand your mechanical glee. How much time will that extra 10" of cutting save you?
Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Riding mowers . . . ok, I've seen those in Consumer Reports, I know what they are. I think.
Sounds like you really have great friends, Farmgirl. Enjoy the new mower, and use it in good health! Whatcha gonna do with your old mower?
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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My friend named his mowers and other lawn equipment. Some people name everything, I guess, out of some way of attaching human traits to them. I guess I name my computers (and CALL them names , so it's not too strange. Anyways, the list:
Gravey, the 36" mower. It was self-propelled, commercial-grade. Silky, the standing attachment to Gravey. Toro, the little residential mower, named after it's mamma, Toro Inc. "Guaranteed to start in 3 pulls." Weedy, the weed eater. Virgil, the truck.
I wanted to name the blower "Limbaugh", but my conservative friend wouldn't have it.
Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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There's a free-speech bread over yonder, and I reckon the love's could do with some sandwiches. We're all out of salad-greens here, but *gestures at domestic horticultural engines* you think you could pull something relevant out of your gardens?
*checks notes*
virgil asked for a plain cheese sandwich, minus the mayo. he was adamant about that. everyone else just looked hungry.
Congrats on the "new" mower! When we got ours, after 5 years of mowing about 3 acres with his'n'hers push mowers, the job suddenly became "his" now that it was fun... I haven't had to mow since. Rain
Posts: 1379 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Enjoy the new mower, and use it in good health! Whatcha gonna do with your old mower?
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aren't you a cute one with the words today!
