Tractor Update

The evening of the part replacement turned into a comedy of errors.

1. Appt time change phone call from the mechanic turned  from 5 pm to the ubiquitous later turned into 7:30. Remember I live in the NE and that means daylight outside at 5 pm and no need for extra lighting to pitch black at 7:30 and the yell of, "Phyllis where are the  *%?#^  flashlights?"

2. Mechanic arrived at our house without the part. Didn't realize it till he pulled into our driveway. Good thing he only lives 20 minutes away. Had to race home to get it. One of the reasons for the need for the flashlights.

3. Parts originally removed from the tractor to get to the broken part, "Phyllis, where are the extra parts at? We need them so we can reinstall the part now and I can't find them."

4. I am particular about saving receipts and instruction manuals that come with big ticket items. Our mechanic had used one of those saved books to order the part for the tractor. Promised me he would return it. Funny thing, once he had left that evening.... I was asking hubby about the missing booklet and the phone rang. It was my favorite mechanic laughing on the other end of the line. He still had the booklet on the front seat of his truck. Which was now parked in his driveway. AGH! What else?

The end shot? The tractor works like a charm. BIG sigh of relief here.

The Lawn Tractor

Never really thought I'd be so dependent on a machine before . But, this summer showed both hubby and myself exactly how much we need and depend on our lawn tractor.

We bought the damn thing from Sears, four years ago. That was after we moved into our first ever home and were buying tools for this and tools for that to maintain the home. One thing I did learn, I will never buy another Sears product ever again.

That bears repeating, EVER AGAIN.

We bought the tractor from Sears.... so excited we were. But, I should have known better when I had to fight with the store manager to get a bill of sale for the tractor. That took me probably close to 4 months. I won't go into details but, it got pretty nasty and I am sure my blood pressure was 20 digits higher than normal during all the time it took me to get the bill from the manager.

Then there was the mulching. Something I wanted to do with the mower. I had to special order four bolts I would be needing to hold the mower deck on in a certain manner. I fought and fought with the 1-800 Sears people all summer long after I placed the order for those bolts. Needless to say those "special" bolts never arrived. Hubby jury rigged 4 extra long 10 penny nails in place of those bolts.

Now this summer.... something (not sure what to call it) broke that held the mower deck up off the lawn
at specific heights. Our mechanic (god love him) tried to get the part ordered from Sears. To no avail. He quit after two months of trying with 1-800 Sears telling him lies about the part being in Calgary.... and then it was not there any number of times.

He finally after many phone calls got the money credited back on his credit card.... and then took the part to a machine shop. They fabricated the piece in less than a week. My favorite mechanic is coming over this
evening and reinstalling the part. Woo Hoo!We will once again have our lovely tractor working again.