Riding Mowers
My teenage son James was 16 and I swear that he had super glued himself to the couch, he always seemed to be there whenever I walked in the room that was until I bought one of those super useful riding mowers. My wife swore that James went to school every day, was passing in all of his subjects and was capable of intelligible speech.I tried to talk to him, encourage him and get him to help me with our rather large garden but until the riding mowers appearance he showed absolutely no interest – to me in actual fact he barely showed a sign of life. And then I went shopping for riding mowers. I could see him listening when I spoke to my wife about riding mowers, a spark of interest in his eyes in the moment our eyes met before he looked away.
I kept talking to my wife about the riding mowers in front of Jams after that, I wanted to connect with him somehow and riding mowers could help me with that then I would talk about riding mowers till I was blue in the face just to get a spark of interest.
Well I talked about riding mowers for a month, test rode a few mowers, talked to friends who had mowers and I finally decided on the model of mowers that would fit my needs and me.
These were some of the features of riding mowers that I considered before settling on the one that I bought:
Riding Mowers Feature #1: Deck Leveling
All riding mowers will have this as well as lawn and garden tractors. The deck is where you are able to adjust the cutting blades height in regards to the ground. You want one that is easy and safe to adjust.
Riding Mowers Feature #2: Hydrostatic Drive
Many riding mowers will have a hydrostatic drive as a feature and what it does is provide the effortless power to move the riding mowers in whichever direction you may want to travel.
Riding Mowers Feature #3: Mulch Plug/Mulch Plate
The plug or mulch plate covers the discharge outlet on mowers that are convertible mulching and discharge mowers whilst they are mulching and collecting.
Riding Mowers Feature #4: Overhead Valve (OHV)
The overhead valve engine on riding mowers refers to the actual type of engine that is installed and is where the intake and the exhaust valves are located on the top of the cylinder head as opposed to on the side – many consider these to be superior engines.
Riding Mowers Feature #5: Power Takeoff (PTO)
The PTO is what actually drives the blades on riding mowers and you can either have mechanical or electric clutch models.
Riding Mowers Feature #6: Tool-free Adjustments
These are adjustments that can be made to the riding mowers without the need to use tools things such as the height of the blades, the deck leveling and some of the maintenance procedures.
So I looked at all of the riding mowers and finally made that purchase, I was very excited because, apart from the fact it seemed that James was interested in them I was looking forward to using it myself to cut the lawn that was looking a wee bit overgrown as it had been neglected when I had been looking at mowers.
A couple of days after I bought my favorite model it was delivered to our house complete with fuel and instructions. My wife and I stood in the yard and admired its sheer beauty and we saw the curtains in the living room move, we knew that James was watching as well. My wife went inside and left me to the riding mowers beauty. I stared at it for a bit longer and thought that I should start her up and do some of the mowing before lunch.
I mowed for about an hour and enjoyed how easy riding mowers are to use when compared with the traditional push mowers that are just hard work – especially on a yard that is the size of mine. I was happily mowing away and I saw my wife come to the patio door and give me a wave to indicate that lunch was ready.
So I drove the riding mowers over and parked it near the door. After one more look of admiration I went inside and joined my wife and son for lunch. James was as quiet as ever even after I asked him what he thought of the model of riding mowers that was out the back in the yard. He just glared into his food and excused himself soon after and left the table.
My wife and I took our time and we had just poured our coffee when we heard the mower start we looked at each other and I had to smile I thought that I knew who that might be so instead of rushing outside we walked over to the living room curtains and peeked out and there was James in the riding mowers seat and he was mowing the back yard.
At first we couldn’t see his face as his back was toward us but as he turned around to mow back the other way I saw that there was something strange about my sons face something was there that I hadn’t seen for a while. James was smiling as he mowed.