Mowing Oops. Duh moment

Doc

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I've done dumb stuff before and I'm sure I will again but today takes the cake. WTF I was thinking I do not know. Actually I was jamming to some tunes while mowing and I must've turned off most of my brain.

We found a barge rope at our river lot. Wifey decided to bring it to the house for adornment somewhere. This was a 30ft or so piece of rope, much longer than the shorter ones we normally find. For some reason unknown to me wife decides to run in along the edge of our driveway temporarily.

I'm mowing today and rather than get my fat ass off the mower to move the rope or (option 2) skip that bit of grass and get it with the trimmer. Both were good options that I didn't really consider. I decide to nudge the rope with the edge of my mower deck to scoot a small section of the rope that had slipped off the pavement into the yard back onto the pavement. There was a big knot in the rope where I was going to nudge, and I've done that with other 'things' with no issue. This time it didn't work out so well.

The rope was immediately sucked up into the mower deck (which if I had a brain I would have turned off before trying to nudge anything), wrapped around the shaft of one of the blades and killed the motor. :eek:

I was able to restart and hobble to the garage. Jacked up the mower and saw the rope around the shaft. So, I had to cut through the barge rope. I had never done that before. We had found it on the bank close to our dock. It had been floating in the river for who knows how long. It had collected hoards of dirt from the river. Cutting or sawing it made a horrible dust bomb. Plus I found you don't cut barge rope. it was impossible to cut. First I tried the reciprocating saw. It got jammed up with loose threads of the rope that came loose and it never would make it through, so I changed blades and got a fresh battery. Still no go. Tried my utility knife to minimal avail. Got the bolt cutters and it would not open wide enough to cut the whole rope. I had to break apart strands of the rope and cut them individually then finish the little that was left with the reciprocating saw. What a nightmare, but I finally got it done. 45 mins I'll never get back. Then I had to finish mowing. Arrrggg. Thankfully the mower and mower deck performed flawlessly after my idiot operator error.
 

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Doc

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A grinder with a cut off disc would have made short work of it ....as someone on FF pointed out to me. I have one just sitting in the pole barn. Duh number 2.
Rough day.
 

California

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Last week I had a similar Duh revelation. Last year the old water heater in the barn leaked. Instead buying a replacement we took it out, capped the pipes, and switched to cold water detergent. That works fine. However ...

I was at the ranch alone last week and noticed the washing machine took forever to fill. I finally switched the knob to 'cold rinse' to get it filled in a reasonable time, then switched back to begin the wash.

Days later - It occurred to me I need to run a 'Y' from the cold water faucet on the wall to feed cold tapwater into the Hot inlet on the washer, then it will fill in normal time.

Duh! Only took me a year to understand the reason why it filled so slowly.
 
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