Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke
Lawnmower Control Bar Repair
It was a perfectly ordinary mowing day, until it wasn’t. Midway through my lawn routine, the control bar on my mower decided it had worked hard enough and called it quits. (For the uninitiated, that’s the bar you hold down while mowing; let go of it, and the motor politely stops. Great safety feature. Decidedly less great when it breaks mid-mow.) Now, I have to do our lawnmower control bar repair.
With the kind of determination that can only be described as stubbornness in the service of a tidy lawn, I finished the job by manually holding the release. Victory, but clearly a temporary one.
Afterward, I filled my wife in on the situation. She, being the far more practical half of this partnership, immediately went online and tracked down a replacement part. We weren’t even sure what to call it at first, but a little internet sleuthing revealed it’s simply known as a control bar. Who knew? The internet, apparently. Isn’t it something that you can find almost anything online these days?
Even better? The part costs about $17 with shipping. Considering that a full lawnmower replacement can run $400 or more, I’ll take that deal any day of the week. There’s even a schematic available online, so the repair shouldn’t be too complicated. I love fixing things, and I’m already looking forward to the project — even if smaller parts can be a bit tricky with my left hand, which hasn’t been quite the same since my brain stroke. I can still fix things, though. And I fully intend to.
The part won’t arrive until next week, so in the meantime, I’m keeping a hopeful eye on the forecast. I cut the grass nice and short before things went sideways, so even if the lawn has to wait a bit, I’m not too worried about things getting out of hand.
Our Other Home Maintenance Projects
My wife has been keeping herself admirably busy in the meantime; she tackled the gutters a few days ago and has also been waging her own personal war on the driveway weeds. Weekend mornings are her time for outdoor chores, and she approaches them with an efficiency I can only admire from the sidelines.
Tomorrow is looking rainy and chilly, but I still plan to get my run in before my dentist appointment. I’ll aim for late morning and just need to be careful not to dawdle so long that I end up dripping onto the dentist’s chair. A little soggy is manageable. A missed appointment is not.
Until next time, may your mower run, your parts be cheap, and your dentist appointments be mercifully uneventful.