[AT] Adventures with shear pins

[Dean Vinson]

I've given up brush hogging the scruffier areas of my new place until the
summer growth dies down and I can do more effective walk-throughs.   Lots of
hard old osage orange branches laying low in the grass, along with
occasional bits of nasty junk like cinder blocks and old rusty tangles of
woven-wire fence sections.   I've replaced the shear bolt on the mower quite
a few times, and had to have somebody out to fix a flat rear tire on the 620
after a heavy piece of wire--possibly from that mass of old fence
wire--punctured it.   Time to stop beating up the equipment and wait until I
can really clear all the obstructions out.

But the weather was spectacularly nice this evening, so after finishing up
another chore I hooked the 620 back up to the mower and went out to the
meadow by the orchard.   It had all been mowed last fall when I first
visited this place and I walked around it several times back then, all very
nice and trimmed, almost yard-like, so I was confident I wouldn't hit
anything.    Spun up the brush hog, eased the clutch forward, and off I
went...and then not two minutes later heard the mower suddenly hit
something, followed by the "pop" of the shear bolt breaking and the sound of
the mower coasting down, no longer being driven by the PTO.   #*^@! it, what
the heck was down there?    

Turned out to be about 150 feet of very nice rubber garden hose, loosely
coiled up in big easy ovals and spread over an area about four feet wide and
eight feet long.   Still had water in it, or at least it did before that
mower chopped it into about 20 pieces.   I hope the previous owner doesn't
want it back...

Dean Vinson
Saint Paris, Ohio