Cursed?

I am beginning to think that my yard and mowing is a cursed event. All season, the back yard has been an alligator shy of a swamp and I have had to mow between the rains while wearing boots to keep my feet dry. Some places were too wet to mow and I would have to get off of my riding mower to push the swamped wheels from muck.

Then the belt on the riding mower was loose and allowing the belt to slip. I decided to buy a new belt and replace it. Before I go on, I must tell you my wife, Cindy, said that I was mechanically retarded, but I would tell her I preferred mechanically dyslexic. After looking at my owner’s manual and finding the belt number, I removed the belt, remembering how I removed it. Taking the belt and the belt number, I bought one, brought it home, and replaced it on the machine.

I started it up and started mowing. Suddenly, I saw blue smoke and headed back to the basement. I apparently did something wrong, my belt was chewed up and non-functional. I finished mowing with my walk behind mower.

So, I went back and bought another belt. This time someone reminded me to watch YouTube for an instructional post on the mower and belt replacement. Great, now I was ready. I replaced it while watching the step by step on my laptop. It was time to mow again. No blue smoke and I thought that I was home free, but it wasn’t to be. About ¾ of the way in my chore, the blades stopped cutting, but it was still drivable and I headed for the basement. The new belt was still on the pulleys, but the belt was loose. I couldn’t figure out why and finished mowing again with my walk behind.

I had a friend, James, and almost son-in-law look at it and he wasn’t able to figure out what was wrong either. I’ve been mowing with my walk behind since.

About a week ago, I was mowing with the push mower and took a break. When I went back outside, it started, but was barely running. I cleaned the air filter and it improved, slightly, but I couldn’t mow with it and I’ve been trying to figure out why it wasn’t running well. It runs with two things oxygen and fuel. I’ve been trying things to fix it.

James came over Saturday to mow with his mower. He made one pass along the back of my yard and his mower stopped mowing. He pushed it to my basement and believe it or not, it was his belt as well, but while he was here, he looked at my rider and found that a spring had broken. He is going to pick one up and we’ll repair my rider. (I hope.)