Well, here I am on 5 acres, 2.5 of which needed mowing now. Did I mention that the 2000 was out of warrantee? Couple years out. I was still taking it in for repairs regularly, except this time I was footing the bill. (They did get repaired faster now that I was paying.)



Then it came. It was an unexplainable glitch which only allowed me to mow for 15 minutes at a time. Do you have any idea how long it takes to mow several acres in 15 minute increments? Me either, never did the whole thing. It had some overheating issue, where as soon as it got warm it would die and refuse to start until it cooled again. I could mow fine in the middle of winter, except for one fact... no winter in SE Texas. I must admit, it kept my lazy side with a permanent excuse. "Mower is cooling, Honey." Hehe.



But even with this, I refused to get a new mower. I was stubborn, (and broke) and I didn't want to fork over the money for a new one. Until... "the bolt". "The bolt" is a small piece of metal, with threads, which holds the blade onto the deck of the mower. You'd think "the bolt" was made of steel like every other bolt on the planet, but apparently "the bolt" was made of some unknown alien metal, stronger than anything on earth. That is every part of the bolt except the head, which was made of rust I believe. After the head of rust broke off, I had a portion of "the bolt" which I had to remove before I could put another "the bolt" in to hold the blade on.  Thus begins the side adventure of the "broken bolt remover."