When your mower breaks down on a farm....

What happens when your house yard is a large acreage on a farm and your second hand ride on mower breaks down??? Read this and you will get the answer.

I am not sure if this happens to anyone else but this is what always happens to us!

Every time we have a mower break down it is usually the week or two before Christmas when everyone is flat out on the farm and trying to keep up with family and friend commitments  as well as all the usual Christmas preparation stuff we all do. It is ALWAYS the years that there is plenty of grass to mow and rain falls in copious amounts on a regular basis. It is not that the mowers are not maintained - they just wear out, are old and beyond repair. This has happened at least 3 times that I can think of.

These pictures show part of our front yard.

Mowing is one of my chores on the farm of which I am happy to do. I push mow the backyard for exercise and fitness but use a ride on to do the front and side yards near the house. I physically cannot mow all that area with a push mower especially when the grass grows at the rate it is at the moment.
My solution when the ride on breaks down is to now let DH Farmer know that I cannot and will not push mow the front and side yards. I stated that we needed a new ride on as the old one was beyond repair. So after DH Farmer push mowed those areas three times from before Christmas until about two weeks ago he came to the conclusion that we did in fact need a new ride on mower!!! Yay I thought!!!!  DH Farmer said  - " leave it to me - I will organise it".  I was glad that he had not resorted to putting the slasher on the tractor to mow the lawns. ( And yes - this has been known to happen as well!!)

Now as you know we like to buy local. So DH Farmer visited the places in town that sell ride on mowers and decided that he would purchase from the dealership that also services the mower in town and is not sent away. Good idea. I will add that this dealership is the place we always purchase our tractors for the farm from.

He ordered the mower with my approval. He went to pick it up in the back of our truck. He returned home without the mower. " Where is the mower?" I asked. The reply was -  " It is too big for the back of the truck."

 "WHAT???"

He went to town with our eldest son and his larger truck and returned home with the mower. When I saw it I thought -  " OMG he has bought another tractor!!" On the front cover of the handbook it is in fact called a "Mower Tractor" -  so I was not far from the truth.

After some lessons I must say that the tractor (Oops!!!) mower is lovely to use and does a great job! I am happy if not still a little scared (read as terrified!!!) of it but I am sure that we will become great friends as time goes on. I am most grateful that we no longer push mow all our yard and that DH Farmer did indeed take care of getting a new tractor (Oops!! Mower).

Trevor the tractor (mower) and it is red because it goes fast!!!!
I takes up about 2/3 of a car bay in the garage!!!!

Until next time....
Carol