Two things completely unrelated to each other. First, the next time I make caramel corn I am going to sift it for rogue kernels. Ouch! Second, I wasn't trying to save the earth from th evils of big oil or the green house effect of corbon monoxide in the atmosphere, I bought the rotary lawn mower because I needed to mow at night.
Code enforcement was only called once and it was more for the jungle in my back yard than the woody weed grass in my front yard. I hated mowing because it meant something else necessary wasn't going to get done on lawn day. If I did the other things I would always get in after 8 p.m. - a.k.a. the city's noise curfew. Plus, Oklahoma in the summer hits humid 90 by 6 a.m. It is miserable to mow a lawn behind a frickin gas powered lawn mower. Plus the mess it left behind was another chore all on its own.
So, once I saved enough for the rotary . . . I . . . sorta . . . I left my lawn mower outside the fence near the alley way. God bless the theif who freed me from my chains, and I am not talkin' Jesus on this one. It only took about 24 hours for my gas powered lawn mower to grow feet and disappear. I hope who ever took it started a lawn business and didn't pawn it for drugs. I prayed over it in that manner as soon as I noticed it missing.
I went to WalMart (clearly when I still believed in their business model) and bought a Scott's.
The biggest draw for me was the no motor thing. Tell me I can't mow after 8 p.m. Hmphf. Watch me!
I put the baby in her crib, turned the monitor on high and started my usual path. Then I stopped in my usual path. A 1/4 inch or larger stick branch or other debris is rotary kriptonite. Picked them all up (than you oak tree, for that special treat - sheds worse than a dog), then continued on . . . my . . . pa . . . pa . . . (rocks are kryptonite, too) path.
And you will hear a similar story from nearly every review of a rotary mower. I guess I only really expect to be able to cut at night so what happened over the next few weeks made me a true believer. Anyone who know me, knows I was strapped for cash like crazy then. There was no magic, no sorcery! (I will espect a check in the mail for this solid endorsement right here). I saw it start in the low corner first. Each time I cut, I saw a bigger and bigger patch of Kentucky Bluegrass spread over the front portion of my lawn. I was so proud of my grass. If I hadn't got a new job and moved to another town, I am sure I could have made my whole yard an oasis among the halfway house and prison release drug echange on my street on Sundays. I swear it wasn't that way when I moved in.
after I moved back to Utah, it sat for a while in Mom's garage becore I lent it to an Airman for a summer. Somewhere in the move both carriage bolts that secure the handle got lost, I am going to say panhandle-ish?
Since she gave it back it has been sitting in the weather looking sad and rusty. I was a little scared of the cost to repair it so I didn't even look up the part. Joke was on me. They sell the bolt and the washer to secure it, in the applicable size, for 22 cents per assembly. She had done a remarkable job securing the hadle with a bundle of nylon rope that probably cost more than a whole bucket of the bolts. And it has sat getting beaten up by the weather for two years now. I found the 1/4 in x 2 in carriage bolt and nut and they fit. Now I need to WD-40 the blade to see if I can clean it first. Then rustoleum.
I worried that the rust would have dulled the blade so I called a lawn mowe repair guy who said no matter where you take it, no on does it them selves, they all send it to the same shop in Salt Lake City and that guy charges $120 to do it. I said, "excuse me?" He sai yes, it costs more to have him"sharpen" it than it does to just go buy a new one.
This is where my conservationist starts talking to my rationalist and I googled how to sharpen it. It doesn't require grinding, it doesn't require an artisan like skilled labor. It requires a goop that has the sharpening abrasive in it and a handle to turn the blade. All I am saying is, if I get good at this, I might have found my quirky niche side job that can bring in $75 a mower. : )
