I went over to the in-laws house today to mow the yard. My father-in-law passed away awhile back and my mother-in-law is in a home with Alzheimer's. We want to rent the house again but in the mean time I have to keep the yard mowed. The next door neighbor's son is 10 years old and just last night I called them to see if they would let him mow it this summer. I figured that would be a great job for a young kid. Anyway, the neighbors weren't home so I left a message with the young mans grandma to pass along. Not hearing from them by this evening I went over there to mow. My father-in-laws mower is a MTD Cub Cadet that is a piece of junk that he got from another neighbor for a couple of hundred dollars. I didn't want to have to try to keep that running all summer long which was another reason for farming the mowing out.Anyway, I figured I'd have one last time mowing. The grass was too tall to let it it go another day. Yeah,one more time and I'd hopefully be done with it.
I got the front yard mowed and was 2/3 done with the back yard when I noticed some smoke. At first I wasn't too concerned because it uses oil but when I changed directions I could smell something burning. I quickly shut it down and pulled the hood. Flames shot up from the front of the engine around the PTO clutch area. The tractor was near a grove of pine trees so I disengaged the hydrostatic transmission and pushed it out into the yard to get it away from the trees. I went to the garage and found a plastic jug and filled it with water and doused the flames. It's a little crispy now and won't be repaired by me. On the plus side, the neighbor kid is wanting to mow the yard with their mower. I just need to work out the details with his dad.
