From bad to worse in a hurry

Stan in Oly, WA

Well-known Member
Yesterday I went out to mow the planting strip---the area between the curb and the sidewalk---along the street beside my house. Experience has taught me to take a plastic bag to clean up after dogs before mowing. The effort was not in vain. I put the bag on the street against the curb to pick up when I finished. When I pulled the cord to start the mower, it came off in my hand. I stood there for a moment with the mower running, with one hand on the deadman bar and the pull cord in the other hand. The bag that catches the grass was empty, but the grass was high and I couldn't decide if grass clippings would fill the bag before I finished mowing. Once I let go of the deadman bar I was going to be done mowing until I got the starter rope reconnected. While I was trying to decide what to do, I either let the mower move a little, or the breeze from the blade moved the top of the goody bag and the blade caught it. Even with the bag pulled into the mower, I didn't let it stop immediately. I must have hoped it would be thrown into the grass catcher and I could deal with it after mowing however much lawn I could mow. It didn't work that way. Bag plus contents plus centrifugal force plus blade to open the bag equals nasty mess. On the other hand, the sun was shining, I wasn't hurt or, more importantly, splashed, and it was actually pretty funny. I mean, you can't make up stuff like that.

Stan
 
You should of taken the starter rope and tied the dead man bar down! I am very safety conscience but we always tie them, but then we are always mowing flat ground, and I wear hard toe boots.
 
Good reason why I don't own a push mower new enough to have that little feature. In fact, out of four riders and two push mowers, only one is new enough to have safety switches. That's not the one I use - it makes me crazy. Those new mowers feel like tinker toys. I'll take my old heavy iron beasts.
 
Stan, you indeed are a lucky man to acquire so much free fertilizer from dog owners!


Better be quiet about it, though, or the city will hit you with a tax for your good fortune!
 
I had a new 10' X 12' tarp laying beside one of my trailers. I thought I could slip past it with the Grasshopper. It sucked that whole tarp under the deck and killed the engine. Had to cut it free with a razor knife. But it wasn't filled with dog doo, ha! Good story Stan!
 
Funny storey and a nice attitude on life as well :)

I recently got the first mower I have owned that has a deadman switch , first thing I did was put a loose zip tie around the bar and handle . Easy to use , leave it down the side when mowing so the switch works if necessary . If you need to keep it running just slide the tie up the side and over the bail .

First time I started a new John Deere ride on mower I ran over a thin steel cable , wrapped itself around the blades one hundred and eleventy seven times :shock:
 

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