The Blades Were The Cheapest Part

In a blog post the other day I told you that when clearing some brush at our son’s house, I whacked a stump with the blade of my Kubota tractor’s mid-mount mower and bent it. As it turns out, there are actually three blades in the mid-mount mower, and it’s best to replace all three at the same time so that everything is balanced properly. That makes sense, so yesterday I went to Tuscaloosa Tractor and picked up a set of blades. They were about $62, which turned out to be the cheapest part of the whole thing.

A 30-millimeter nut holds the blades in place, and I didn’t have a socket that big, so on the way home we stopped at Harbor Freight to get one. But as it turned out, they didn’t have a socket that big for sale individually and I had to buy a whole set of large metric sockets for $50. Since it required a 3/4 inch drive, which I also didn’t have, and there were no adapters to move up from one of the ratchets I do have, I also had to spend $22 fora new ratchet. But wait, there’s more! Rather than take the whole mid-mount mower off the tractor and then reattach it, which is a real bear to do, I needed a couple of jack stands to be able to get the tractor up high enough to swap out the blades. They were originally $50, but there was a sale going on and the clerk gave me a heck of a discount and they only cost me $28. So that cost, $100 altogether.

They were having a big sale, so while we were there, we bought some other things that were sale priced, including a bench vise, some files, and a couple other goodies. Our total bill for everything was $216. I need to either get a second job or be more careful mowing from now on. 😊

Be sure to enter our latest Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an audiobook of THE CHESAPEAKE: Tidewater Sagas, a collection of short stories of the shared memories of those who lived life to the fullest in the Chesapeake region, donated by my friend Ken Rossignol.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 90 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – A well-trained dog will make no attempt to share your lunch. He will just sit there looking at you and make you feel so guilty that you cannot enjoy it.