Yesterday, I mowed the lawn as announced here on Secondary Roads.  I filled the tractor fuel tank with diesel fuel and began the job.  As lunch time approached, I started to mow a long stretch (about an eighth of a mile) between the road and the ditch.  The blades of the mower were hitting the gravel that had been thrown into the grass.  I kept raising up on the lift lever, but the condition persisted.  That’s when I discovered that the mower deck was not lifting.  Not even a tiny bit.

I moved the tractor to a safe place away from the road and inspected the mechanism.  Sure enough, two bolts were sheared.  Bolts that raised the deck.  Further inspection revealed that this was not something that I could fix with a couple of parts.

My John Deere dealer came to the rescue.  Oh I will pay for it, but they did come and collect John and hauled him off to the shop for repairs with an expectation of returning him early next week.  (Only two more payments to go on John before he’s all mine and already he’s off for repairs.)

As I talked with Sylvia about it, I remembered that I was distracted and had hit a cedar tree with the mower deck.  I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but that must have been when it happened.

Most of the grass was still long and most of it was not yet mowed.  I didn’t want the grass to get ankle high, so when the tech from the service department left with my tractor on his trailer, I fueled up Yan.  Yan is my Yanmar YM-240 and is what I used before I bought John.

Here’s a shot of me working with Yan as we are about to till the garden.  Imagine the red tiller being replaced by an orange 6-foot cut finish mower and a driver that is 17-pounds thinner.  That was the scene Thursday afternoon.  I miss the power steering, hydrostatic transmission and under-the-tractor (belly-mount) mower deck of the John Deere.  I especially miss the power steering.  My arms were a bit tired and sore, but not so bad that I couldn’t enjoy a nice supper–especially the corn on the cob.
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