Mower Blade Angst!!!

You never save time by taking the short cut!!!

So Saturday morning I knew I was in need of new blades for my mower. The 3/4 inch path of uncut grass was the tale-tale sign. Also, I was tearing the tops of the blades of grass rather than cutting. I was shocking the little blades of grass and causing their new little hair cuts to turn from green to brown by the next morn. Third gear was as fast as I could go and still lop the grass to the desired height. Worse of all, I was double cutting - that is, only moving over 20 inches with each lap around the house instead of the 40 inches that the width of the mower deck would allow.

So, the time I spend Saturday morning should have been enough to finish the deed. NO, I was only half done. I left the job half done. Funeral for a Friend in the early afternoon and Family arriving for Mom's birthday celebration on Sunday (more on this later).

So I go to the local hardware store between other errands. I get to the counter and all the clerks are helping others. I wait my turn and I get the new clerk!!! It takes her twice as long to look up the comparative model number as it should. She writes the four digit number on her "redneck Palm Pilot" and goes to the furthermost corner of the store. Two of the 6476 blades are produced. Paid and back home, the blades are placed on the work bench in the garage for another day...

That day was this morning, an early rise on a jbex holiday! So beautiful was the sunrise! Many song birds announced the dawn. Hummingbirds fought over the rights to drink from the feeder. A muster of black friends perched in the boughs of the leaning pine tree in the spring head before going out to the various compass points.









Photos of Sunrise this morning.








Coffee and a liter of water later, the task of blade changing is addressed.

Old blades off.
New blades retrieve from the work bench.
TOO LONG!!!

I take the wrong new blades (along with one of the old ones for reference) back to the hardware store... 6476 should have been 6475. Then the clerk said, "Twenty one cents". My jaw drops onto the old hard wood floor, totally void of any finish from many years of foot traffic.

"UH, these blades are shorter and besides it cost me three time that to drive back to town because of your mistake!" Not really, my truck gets better gas mileage than that. I pull out my money clip and place a Where's George on the counter, my seventy nine cents change is handed back to me with my receipt. 30 minutes of my morning is lost. The coolness of the early morning has given way to heat. At 10:30, I make my retreat into the house. Still incomplete, more mowing this evening when the sun starts setting in the west.