Finally got my mower running! It's not quite time to mow, but I'm ready. My buddy came by to trouble shoot and several times we thought we found a simple answer. Fist a loose battery cable, then a chewed wire (by a critter), but finally I suggested we call the tech guy from Cub "just in case he knows something specific to the mower that we don't know". Any other way of suggesting it would have been a grand insult to a master mechanic.

So I get tech support on the line after ten minutes and describe the problem. "There ya go", he says, "it's the solenoid". So he gives me the part number and I thank him anyway and we set to removing the solenoid. The mower itself weights a few hundred pounds, so the last thing I wanted to do was haul it to the shop. I'd have to borrow a small trailer since it's too heavy to get into the bed of the Silverado.

So my buddy pulls the last bolt that holds the solenoid and I hear, "will look at this!" It was a %^#%&@#$ 20 amp fuse! This is why I wanted to call tech. That jerk should have known there was a fuse there. Not a word about "dead" in the manual either. So we put a 30 in there since that's what I had and the chewed wires were fixed, so the 30 should be safe until I get a 20.

No such luck with the gen tho. Hopefully that only needs a new spark plug. That's not as critical right now as the mower.

The truck has something going on in the left front wheel, but we didn't get to that either. I'd rather have this guy check it out first. Ya know damn well that a shop would say it's the most expensive thing if we take it in without a clue as to what's wrong.

Below are a few pics of the current growing season. I think it was Laura who asked in a comment to my last blog about the current stage of mowing. Most of the pics are self explanatory. There is one that shows garlic. The others are mostly tiger (day) lilies and ground cover.

Happy Spring! It has finally arrived!

Well, one of the pics got saved to the wrong directory or something, so here's 4.