Like almost every homeowner, I have a yard. With a yard comes a lawn. With a lawn comes the responsibility of keeping it mowed. Which is one of the reasons I wanted kids. Before my wife smacks me with the latest issue of The Herald I should point out it’s not the only reason. I hate doing dishes also.
I have two teenagers and one pre-teen. The pre-teen is a real “girly-girl” and I just can’t visualize her ever working with anything mechanical. Unless they come out with some kind of machine that applies make-up to a female face. No, I don’t want any emails telling me this thing exists either. My other girl is seventeen and has a part-time job and finishing up high school so her household chores are few (as long as she’s working.) The other teen is fifteen and male. One might think this is perfect when it comes to keeping the yard mowed visualizing at least two summers of grass cutting experience. One might also think that teenagers everywhere love to work.
We’ve got less than an acre and our house takes up a chunk of that. And keep in mind the more sod I rip up for my ever-expanding garden means less yard to be mowed. Despite the stories I’ve told my son of my youth when I used scissors to cut over 2 acres of grass uphill in the snow barefoot every summer he still doesn’t see how easy he’s got it.
Well, my wonderful wife recently tried to lighten his workload by buying a lawn tractor from one of her co-workers. It was really too good to pass up as I know I won’t be able to force my boy to do this chore forever. Right around thirty is a good cut-off age, don’t you think? Anyway now that he’s got his driving learning permit I really thought he’d want to jump on that old lawn mowing beast and get after it. And he did. For almost an hour.
In all fairness to the boy it is a pain to have to stop and let the thing cool down when it gets too hot for the condenser to function properly. But until I get the time to pull the flywheel and replace it that’s just how it is. He did get the job started. But guess who finished it? That’s right: dad. Keep in mind we’ve only had this riding mower for one cutting so far.
One thing I was glad to see was he was right there wanting to know how to maintain the rider. We looked the whole thing over together when we first got it home and I showed him where the major functioning parts were and how they’re operated, checked how clean the oil in the crankcase was and checked the level, changed the PTO belt, added some duct tape to hold the foam air filter in place, replaced the spark plug, sharpened the two blades, lubricated the joints of the mowing deck and levers and so on. But the question with me remains. Now that he knows how to do it, will he do it? Or better yet, will he do it without having a twenty dollar bill waved over his head?
Perhaps I should start preparing for the future. You know, coming up with a schematic that would upgrade this old rider with a make-up applying feature.
Remember, it’s a great day to be alive. Go make life happen!

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