[AT] Mowing

[Indiana Robinson]

On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 5:38 PM, David Rotigel <rotigel at me.com> wrote:

> How RIGHT you are, Spencer! What started all this for me was when I got
> home from FL and found a flat rear tire on the Pacer and a leak in the gas
> tank of the Economy. Those two things (which would have taken me an
> afternoon to fix 20 years ago) took me the better part of two days this
> year! Just removing the rear tire and putting it in the truck was more than
> I could do by myself. (Thank God for friends!) It took welding on the rim
> and a new tube to get the M-H back on the grass. The Economy tank just took
> R&R and Kwik Poly in the tank between the "Rs". But, all in all, two days!
> I mentioned those problems to my wife (who is the CFO of this outfit) and
> she said "Why don't you just get a new tractor? Cliff [my neighbor] just
> got a new one and it looks nice." I replied "Do you know that thing
> probably cost $15,000.00?" To my shock she replied "Yup, I thought probably
> about that much." The following night when I talked to her (she is still in
> FL) the first thing she asked was "Did you look at tractors yet?" The next
> day I started looking and posted to the list for help. Needless to say I'm
> very pleased with all the good advice I've received!
>         Dave
> PS, Getting old is not for the faint of heart--but I'd still rather mow
> grass than push it up!
> PPS, Spencer, do you know that the SEL seems to be down?
>
>
My little VAC Case had a back tire I needed to change so I jacked it up one
day about September of 2013 thinking that I was doing better from some
health problems. I took the tire off of the rim then removed the rim and
put another rim on that was the same width as the other one and was in
great shape. I cleaned it well an painted it and was ready to mount the
tire but was just too tired. The next day or so was Diana's high school 50
year reunion at a fancy old restored resort at French Lick down in southern
Indiana (named after a salt lick, not what you are thinking) so I let the
tire job sit until after it. That reunion was when when my ticker decided
that it need to generate "an event". I did get that tire finally changed a
bit more than a year later... I had gotten used to most 20 minute jobs
taking a week but that poor tractor just sat there on the jack for well
over a year. I swear that when I let the jack down I heard it sigh...
:-)
More recently I needed to change the front two big mudders on the front of
my truck. I had forgotten just how heavy those things are. Probably over 80
pounds for tire and wheel. It took me a couple of hours (with breaks) to
change one. I did spend a good bit of time cleaning the bead area of the
rim. It was bad enough lifting the tire and wheel up on the tire changer
but lifting it off and over on the balancer was almost past my limit. I got
it back on the truck and decided that the other one needed to rest a while.
 :-)  I did get it done but it was about two weeks later.
Between lawn, over  2 miles of grass lanes and clipping horse lots about 3
times a year we do a lot of mowing. Diana had been doing much of the more
 finished mowing and I do more of the little bit rougher stuff. We keep a
couple of 20+ HP lawn tractors for much of it and I use a finish mower on
my TO-20 Ferguson for some of it. Son Scott mows some that is near his
house and sometimes if he has time he  does a lot more especially at times
when I was pretty much down. I don't recall what kind of mower he bought
but it is a zero turn and it was $7,500 a couple of years ago. He also does
most of the bush-hog work these days. He has a nice MF-175-D and he bought
a nice used John Deere 8' mower for it. We have around 40 acres in grass of
one type or the other but we don't mow all of it every time. The horses mow
a lot of it or at least eat it down to where it mows easy. I often clip the
horse lots with a sickle mower on my Farmall S-MTA. It's a John Deere mower
on the back of a Farmall but we never tell the Farmall that... It can't see
behind it. Scott has been cutting them most of the time for a couple of
years now.
I'm already waaaaay behind on mowing this spring with all of the medical
stuff and since Diana shattered her lower right arm just above the wrist
she can't mow at all now and may not be able to before mid summer if then.
She is in rehab now, slow going, lots of pain yet at rehab.
As you say Dave, "Getting old is not for the faint of heart"...

-- 

Francis Robinson
aka "farmer"
Central Indiana USA
robinson46176 at gmail.com