Damn it…

I came home from work tonight and decided to quickly try and cut the grass before dinner. I got my mower out and opened the back gate. Happily, my mower started right up and I headed for the side yard to go through my gate, at this moment my next door neighbor’s daughter showed up to take him out (he’s old and can’t drive).

I stopped my mower to go close my gate (because I didn’t trust them not to run it down) and they said they’d only be there a minute. I closed the gate inward so the wind didn’t blow it into their car, and proceeded back to the mower to cut the front yard which really didn’t need it much due to the lack of rain.

They finally left, so I wheeled my mower through the gate, cut one triumphant swath across the yard, and then stopped the mower to restore the gate to the “out of my yard” position so I could cut near it since it was badly overgrown.

I hop back on my mower, and it didn’t want to turn over. I think I flooded it, because shortly thereafter it stopped even wanting to try to turn over, despite the fact my headlight still came on (therefore, it wasn’t the battery). I let it sit while I ate dinner, and went to try it again. It made a few half-assed attempts at turning over before stopping even making the noise again… so I walked it back into the garage, and that is the extent of my motivation tonight.

I think I’m going to have to break down and buy a push mower. It seems that once my mower gets started, its fine… its just the getting started part that doesn’t go so well. If the rain holds off, I’m going to try again after my work outing tomorrow afternoon, so cross you fingers on my behalf.