Yesterday, I masked up and left the safty of my Covid free zone to buy a new lawn mower. Since I wanted to avoid Big Box stores I sashayed down to my local, small town Ace Hardware. No joy at Ace, they only had 3 mowers left, none self propelled. They checked the Ace warehouse, again no luck on what I wanted - all sold out. The floor manager explained to me the production lines for mowers got shut down this Spring due to the pandemic so mowers have been in shot supply all season and that now production, if it's going on has switched to snow blowers.
A trip to the Big Box store was looming.
The manager at Ace suggested I try the small engine repair shop, owned by the same family as the hardware store, because they are a Toro dealer. Walked two doors down to the kinda shabby little shop and bought a new Toro from the nicest little old man who must have been in his 80's. We even had a little chat about engine brands and such. Sure I paid maybe $40 more than I would have in a Big Box but I got a mower already assembled, gassed up and which started on the first pull in the parking lot. Plus I got a little entertainment value with our discussion. Worth it.
I've been dinking around with a rechargeable electric since 2007. Under-powered (all rechargeable mowers were under powered back in 2007) the electric mower just didn't work well if I let the lawn get too tall, or if it was wet with heavy dew. It would bog down when mulching and drain the batteries quickly under any kind of load. Plus the electric only had a 12 inch cut. For the cost of replacement batteries I could have bought several new no name gas mowers over the years.
I'm sure electric push mowers are the future, I saw a 60V model at the dealer and that's a lot of power, but I've had my round with the electrics and I just want to mow without a lot of fuss.
There is absolutely no reason for this post, other than buying a damn mower is what amounts to Adventure after 4 months of lockdown. Thanks for reading.
Added:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/companies/briggs-and-stratton-files-for-bankruptcy/ar-BB1774PM
