We live on a 3/4 acre property, which has the potential to be pure awesomeness. The problem is this: big purely awesome property = big purely painful maintenance, and those of you who know me will testify that maintenance is definitely my middle name.

One reason why I decided to buy the property in the first place was that I saw a ride-on lawn mower (lawn-tractor) on Trademe for $400 Buy Now, and just couldn’t pass up a bargain like that. Everyone knows that you need a big back yard to warrant buying a ride-on. Heh.

Enter Murray.

Murray is my ’84 red lawn tractor. He’s seen a lot of action in his long lifetime, but alas, isn’t the sprightly shiny red hot-rod he used to be. Almost every time he cuts the grass now, something breaks down or falls off, and due to my extreme lack of maintenance skills, I spend most of the mowing time, doing a Macgyver on Murray. Meh.

For example… Murray’s battery is flat. In fact, I took the battery out a few weeks ago to get it charged but keep forgetting to borrow the charger from my dad-in-law. So I jump start Murray with the people-mover, but a spring-clip on the jumper lead is broken, and I forgot to mention, Murray’s starter switch is long gone… To cut a long story short (too late), I have to hot-wire Murray with one hand and hold the jumper cable on the terminal with the other (not an easy feat).

Murray’s drive belt came off 5 times today, and after the fifth jump start I got sick of the shenanigans and went off to the ride-on mower shop to buy a new belt.
The man asked me what model lawn-tractor I had, and what year… I said ‘Murray’ and ‘old’.

Don’t feel too sorry for Murray though. His future is very bright. One day when his grass-cutting days are over, he is going to have a new lease on life.

Lawn tractor racing.

I have just discovered that old Murray’s are hugely popular in the US of A for hotting-up and racing. Yeehaar!