It’s been pretty dry around these parts lately, and I haven’t had the mower out in several weeks. The mower, you may recall, is an old Sensation with a 4hp Briggs and Stratton engine. It’s been kept in the shed since 1983, and though pretty dirty most of the time, it was still running well when I last used it. The grass was starting to look like it needed a trim, so I hauled the mower out and filled it up with gas. I was expecting a little trouble since the last time I used it, I had run it out of gas (which I usually try to avoid), as I knew there was some grass and debris in the gas tank. About 10 pulls on the rope later I realized that I had a little more work to do than usual to get her going again. Everything felt normal on the pull, you could hear the normal chugging of the piston, it just wasn’t firing up.

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For the first time in what seems an eternity, the clouds broke and there was some small amount of sun for periods of the day. Today also gave us a break in the humidity which has been near 99% for most of the past week, the high at mid-day being only about 78%. A gentle, and cool 5 mph wind, gusting to 10 mph made being outside almost pleasant. I like to keep track of my local weather using Terry’s BNL weather site since I can look at trend graphs of all the important stats. It’s been so long since I’ve had a chance to work outside and mow, trim and otherwise tend to things, I grabbed the opportunity to get some of it done. Before I could mow the lawn, I knew I had to do a little maintenance on the old mower.
I say old, because I have the original purchase receipt from April 23, 1983! which shows that Dad paid $475 for it new at that time. As a quick aside, wondering how much that $475 was worth at the time, I stumbled over to Economic History Resources for an idea. Although I have not investigated this site’s methodology, the figure it returns, a $858.11 value in 2002, seems reasonable. It’s still a workhorse, so it was a good investment. I assume my mom approved the kingly sum since it was built in Wisconsin, her home state.
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