Does anyone else seem to have an inordinate amount of difficulty with any kind of red lawn equipment? I have 3 push mowers...yes three. None of them will work on a consistent basis. I detest them.

Can someone reccommend a good diagnostics and repair book for small engines? I paid $80 last fall to have them worked on and I really don't want to do that again. Like I said, I detest them and really don't want to put anymore money into their continued existence, but time is easier to commit. Thanks!

-- Doreen (animalwaitress@yahoo.com), April 10, 2001

Answers

Doreen, buy four more red lawn mowers. Then, statistically speaking, you should have a chance that one of them will actually work. LOL

Seriously, I'm not sure the color red is necessarily their problem. ALL lawn mowers hate me with a passion. All small engined anythings hate me and generally refuse to work.

-- Green (ratdogs10@yahoo.com), April 10, 2001.

Anything that has an engine or a plug seems to detest me. Even this blasted computer hates me! But, at least it isn't as tempermental as some other machines I have...

I can't help with buying a new lawnmower - I bought a reel mower. No gas, no engine, no plug.

-- Sue Diederich (willow666@rocketmail.com), April 12, 2001.

I am non-mechanical but have solved the lawnmowing problem. Have a big gray mare that does an excellent job (and does the fertilizing as well) without any difficulty at all. Trims quite neatly along the edges, around the cedar shrubs and even left the wild violet plants untouched!

-- SFM in KY (timberln@hyperaction.net), April 16, 2001.

All right. I will go buy a horse. I've been putting it off anyway. See, in my stack of lawnmowers I have a reel mower, but that little bugger seems to get stuck on every twig that comes along. Being in Texas and having had to doze out the mesquite to even be able to walk around without getting poked to death, there are a lot of twigs, you see. When I first got goats I was under the seemingly common delusion that they would mow. Boy was I wrong. I have learned alot, though. The biggest thing is to never trust a piece of red lawn equipment!

-- Doreen (bisquit@here.com), April 16, 2001.

Here in Kentucky it is blackberry briars! I don't think ANYTHING will eat them (though the locals claim "brush goats" will) and I haven't found anything that will kill them either.

And I used to think Canadian thistle was bad in Montana! Remember my Dad fighting thistle in hayfields and pastures ... and also the burdock ... but both of those things are easy compared to the briars.

-- SFM in KY (timberln@hyperaction.net), April 17, 2001.