The Adventures of Jimmy And The DR Field Mower

Clearing the land for sale has been a big hassle. First, he mowed where he could. Then he cut down small trees and bushes with the chain saw. Now he's using a DR field mower.

He borrowed the DR from a friend's friend. When you borrow something, if you break it then you have to fix it or replace it, right? Right. You know where this is going, don't you?

The first day, the chain came off. He came down the hill and got me to drive the tractor up the hill so he could tie the DR to it. That way, I could provide the power to get the "dead" DR back down the hill. There are a few places that are uphill, even though we're going downhill. That's when he needed the power of the tractor to pull the DR up the little hills. Going down, I had to go very slowly and even then, the DR (being heavy) would pull away from him and he'd be almost running down the hill. Another good thing we had the tractor - the DR could only run away until it bumped into the tractor.

I'd pull the DR to a flat place in the yard and he'd prop it up sideways and reattach the chain. Back up the hill he'd go with the now fixed DR. After clearing brush for about 30 minutes, here he came again - "Get on the tractor. Follow me."

This time the chain broke. We got the DR back down to the old garden and came in to look up the part number for the broken chain so he could order one online. Well, well. No such luck. The parts manual online DOESN'T SHOW A CHAIN! None of the components had the chain included. No chain sold by itself.

Charlie managed to find a chain and they both wrestled with it and finally got it back on. My question at this time was "Is it really worth going to all this trouble?" I didn't get an answer.

Several hours later, I heard someone speaking from the back porch - "Get on the tractor. Follow me." Great! Here we go again. Just reread the 3rd paragraph above.

After getting the chain back on the thingys, he returned to the hill. It's going to be dark in a little while, but he's determined. When it finally did get dark, I got my shoes and the flashlight and started to go up the hill (it's spooky going up that path - bears and mountain lions, no kidding!) but I heard him over by the parked tractor. Whew! Glad I didn't have to make that trip.

Yesterday, he took the DR back to Charlie and they tried to get the chain to stay on. That's when they discovered that the connection thingys were not far enough apart. They redrilled some holes, remounted the connection thingys and reattached the chain. Voila! Now we're cookin'!

Today. This time, he just came to the doorway and looked at me. I knew. I got up, put on my shoes and followed him to the tractor. The chain was off the track. What more can be said? Reread paragraph 3. Just more of the same. Only this time, when we got back to the flat spot in the yard, he couldn't find the chain. It had dropped off somewhere during the rereading of paragraph 3.