Mower Repair

 

                About a month ago, our neighbor showed up in the back yard with an old electric corded mower he had found on the street. I’d been looking for an electric mower for the school garden, so the timing was excellent. We tried it out at home and it worked. We pushed it over to school and it worked for one clump of grass, then stopped. Mark eyed it and pushed it home. “If I can get the top off, maybe I can see what’s wrong,” he mused. It was worth a try.

                Getting the top off was not as easy as it looked. The screws had rusted in place. He gave them a blast of some chemical that breaks up rust and tried two days later. No luck.  “I my need to drill them out—but I don’t have the tool,” he told me. We pushed it under the awning of the greenhouse and I squeezed by it for a couple of weeks.

                Last weekend the same neighbor was over helping me take off the side of the oven with his electric drill. Once the oven was free, he wandered outside with Mark. The drill was in hand, so they tried it. No luck. They wrestled with the mower for about an hour, but failed to shift the screws. However, he did tell Mark what to buy to drill it out. Two days later, we were on a Wilco run for mulch and Mark made a few purchases for the mower.

                That afternoon, he drilled the screws out and lifted the lid. After about an hour of cleaning out dead grass and dust and wiggling the wires, he tried it out. Success! The mower roared to life. He dropped the blade down to the lowest settling and mowed the entire yard. “I feel a little sinful,” he told me. (He mows with a hand reel mower). The mower cut beautifully—so crisp and even. And the basket in the back—which the cat loves to claw!—gathered all of the trimmings to mulch the recently planted tomato crop.  We were thrilled.

                It is not the stove—but it is a small repair victory.