Green Acres

My husband bought a tractor.

Well, not exactly a tractor, but I'm calling it a tractor. It's a ride-on lawn mower. It's a John Deere, which is why I jokingly call it a tractor.

Here's the back story. We have a two push mowers. One is better than the other. The not-so-good one has lived under our deck in all the elements. The week of Big Girl's birthday party, hubby was mowing the lawn to prep the yard. (Now, he HATES mowing. He has back problems, and we have a big nasty hill to push that mower up in addition to the rest of the regular yard.) So, he's mowing, and suddenly the mower just jerks and dies.

Eeek!

We do need a new and better mower to make this job easier. Mowing is the bane of all of our existences in this house. Why? Because hubby mows on a weekend morning and then is shot for the rest of the day. Kaput. And then nothing else ever gets done and we don't do much and the day is wasted.

We had talked about looking into a new mower for next summer. One of our cars should be paid off in January, which will free up some funds that can finance a new and improved mower.

When our push mower broke, hubby had no choice but to try and repair it. Over the course of several days, he researched and took it apart and bought parts and fixed it. And what do you know, it worked! Meanwhile he was browsing on Craigslist and saw this ride-on mower. It was $50. It didn't even start.

"I know it's crazy, but I'm thinking of buying it," he said. "Do you mind?"

He said he thought he could figure out how to fix it. From what was described, and with the amount of reading he had done on lawn mowers for our push mower, he thought he might know what the problem was.

I told him to go for it. It was a gamble, but I'd rather see him throw $50 away on a lawn mower that would possibly work than in our local casino. It was a worth a shot. And he said he could sell it for parts if it didn't work out.

Now, I'm no dummy. I know this mower is going to cost us far more than $50. But have you priced ride-on mowers lately? Outrageous. And this thing is a John Deere. A John Deere, people! At least it's a quality brand, right?

So now I have a disemboweled lawn tractor in my garage, grease and oil everywhere, and a husband stooped over an iPad reading a service manual nightly as he deconstructs and reconstructs a lawn mower engine.

He's a smart boy. I have faith he'll figure it out. And my husband will be happier mowing the lawn and the rest of us will be happy because of it.