Just sitting here flicking through the forum and I am reminded of a few (Now) funny tales when Ive combined mowing and machinery.
Feel free to add your own.
My old man now in his late 70's had a block of land in the Dandenong ranges and once a year the CFA sends him a clean up notice in time for fire season.
The block is a tad over 3/4's of an acre and its all up hill, tussocky grass and bull ant nests with a bit of onion weed to make things interesting and as my Dad is getting on for the past 15 years this job has fallen to myself or my little brother (Or both) and as Im usually the one with the heavy duty mowers I grab a selection and head into Melbourne for the task.
All good except for the spectacular way this job seems to kill mowers probably due to the sad state of the mowers my Dad has had over the years.
My earliest recollection involves a mower called Little Bob, a cheap and nasty pressed metal thing with a small B&S motor and a side chute.
Dads had 3 or 4 of these and im buggered if I know why he keeps buying them but I recall the death of 2 of these things with a smile.
Death # 1 involved Lil bob #2 which was a bugger to start due to low comp from too many floggings, this ment that she had to be refuelled on the fly without killing the engine or it would take up to an hour to re start.
turned out to be a short mowing day that day coz she went whoomp covered in spilt fuel when my bro refilled her, he yells out what do I do and throws the fuel can away starting 3 or so spot fires, Dad yells MOW FASTER the wind will put the flames out and im laughng my arse off looking for the hose.
Result? Cremated mower, Singed Bro, Annoyed Dad, burnt 1/4 block and hysterically laughing Boffa Senior.
Event # 2, Demonic Bob.
Dad used to have a bad habit (Well he had many but this in still sticks in my mind) he collected old mower blades and bolts and used to sharpen them with a grinder (I know i KNOW!).
So we are doing the Block pilgrimage with another little Bob and my Orange Victa Utility and a Flymo my Dad scrounged somewhere along with my Lawn hornet as a sacrifice to the gods of long grass.
Bro is using Bob the Demon 4 stroke and im plowing along with the Victa and I hear the Bob go off song a tad and start vibrating away madly so I shut down and wander over to see my Bro peering under the mower while its still going (Another low comp crapped out mower you dare not turn off when hot)trying to see where the bad harmonics are coming from, I suspect its spat a blade but he reckons its just the mower dying and pushes on so I go mow up the back of the block...... and wait.
After about 5 mins of rattling itself to pieces the mower shuts down and we congregate for a sanga and some water and after lunch I wander down to point out that it was a spat blade.
I was wrong, it was 2 spat blades.......
One we never found and one lodged neatly in the rear door of my new company car.........
THAT'S ok Sez Dad, I've got spares! and produces a motley collection of razor sharp mower blades and some coachbolts and wingnuts he bought for the occasion.
We banned him to lunch duty for the duration.
I think that was the last time we took Dad with us and every year we still sneak up without telling the old man and clear the block, This year im taking up 20 lt of roundup so the job should be a heap smaller next year.
Dad still has the Flymo BTW but these days he only has 30 sq feet of lawn.
