Our Lawn Tractor

Summer is in full swing, our grass was starting to go to seed and our lawn mower had yet to arrive. True to form, my dad came to our financial rescue with one of his frankenstein creations. I’m not sure how old the tractor is, or even what make it is. But it is bright orange, the labels are hand written on as years of wear and tear have faded any semblance of instructions, and it puffs black smoke out it’s side when worked too hard. Oh and did I mention it backfires when you finally shut it down after a hard days work, like one final fart out of an old man after his workshift. My dad and my grandfather had put much love into the machine, and it was finally delivered two Friday’s ago (life with a baby means blogging takes a back seat). My dad and I did a few rounds of the yard that night and our neighbours must have hated us as we chugged across the yard at 9pm at night. The next day, Hubby’s day off, we attempted to slay the grass (aka. the hay field). After a few rounds of the yard, Frankenstein up and died and as I sat in it’s seat, swearing up a storm and banging my head against it’s steering wheel in utter frustration, our neighbour across the way, true to country neighbourliness, came to the rescue. As we couldn’t figure out what was wrong, he decided to help us out by bringing his mower over to lend a hand. Soon he was back with his shiny mower, looking like it was straight from the Sears catalogue, and soon enough, after twice around our “field”, his machine died. He had the genius idea to boost it, thinking it was the battery, and soon we had both machines up and running again after a boost from my truck. Hubby and the neighbour slogged through the long grass, both machines suffering with the length, but soon enough disaster struck again and the neighbour’s mower quit, this time for good. A cracked engine block. Frankenstein soon followed, luckily just needing another boost. I think we boosted Frankenstein 4 times that day, and Hubby had to help our neighbour push his mower back across the road. We’re thankful to have such great neighbours, who admit that they hadn’t maintained their mower before the season, and didn’t blame us or the long grass at all (although I’m sure offering to hack away at our field must have sped up their machines demise). After several hours the lawn was cut.
The next day we were out raking the grass trimmings that blanketed the lawn, and re-mowing areas of grass that had bogged down under the weight of our machine. Hubby and his friend had to drive my truck to the back of our property several times in order to boost Frankenstein where he died without warning whenever he felt like it.
Last night we had our neighbours over to thank them and we provided a feast of pulled pork sandwiches from the smoker and my dad’s famous three bean casserole. And today Hubby mowed the lawn again (this time much easier since it’s a “normal” length now) and Frankenstein weathered it like an old champ. After his initial boost to get started there was no dying, no furtherboosting and only with minimal black smoke and one signature back fire fart when he quit. (the tractor, not hubby)