When you live in the country, there are certain facts that you have to deal with. Bugs. Snakes. Vermin. Lawnmowers.

I’ve learned to deal with bugs, I don’t like them but they’re one of those things that you can somewhat ignore. I’m not a fan of snakes, but I try to give them wide berth and they seem to do the same with me. I’m terrified of vermin. I understood Winston Smith’s terror near the end of the book 1984. I have been known to do terrible, horrible, unspeakable things to try and remove vermin from our house, gardens, and yard. The things I’ve seen, the things I’ve done…awful.

But the top of my list of things I hate about living in the country currently revolves around our Bad Boy Riding Mower. It’s a great big riding mower that should be able to deal with our property. Admittedly, we have 14 acres of former horse pasture that needs to be mowed, so we’re pushing our mower to it’s limits…but not beyond.

This weekend may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of my hate for the mower. You see, I’m not a mechanical person. I have to watch several Youtube videos to replace the lightbulbs on our cars. When I actually successfully replaced the ice-maker in our freezer the rest of the Hectic Clan held a celebration, cake and all!

So, when both the brake cables broke on the mower I was at a total loss. I’d just spent two hours in the wind and heat. Heat that was pushing 100F (38C). With a mower that was dying ever 20 minutes, then required a 10 minute cool-down before restarting. I thought it might need more coolant. Maybe a new air filter. Maybe more gas. Tried all three. Three strikes.

Each restart requires that the brakes are set, so I would dutifully pull the manual brake handle, set the brake, wait for the cool down, and try to restart. Except the cables snapped. Each is a 16-wire cable and each sheared off right at the handle. Directly on the end of the key that attaches to the handle.

As a non-mechanical guy I don’t know how to fix the brake cables. I have no idea why the mower keeps dying. And frankly I don’t have time for this. So I parked the mower, set blocks by the tires so it wouldn’t roll down the driveway on it’s own, and went inside to shower away the yard gunk and potential poison ivy/oak/sumac that had collected on my body.

I’ll deal with the mower another day!