Nothing. It kind of started, and then popped, sputtered, and died. I couldn't get it to start back up for anything. That's not for lack of trying either, since I thought that maybe the gunk leftover from the gas had gotten into the lines and I just needed to work it out. I worked it out for 30 minutes yanking that cord, and it didn't work out.
Fast forward to Sunday. I had been meaning to try starting it again figuring that I'd perhaps flooded the engine royally on Tuesday by priming and pulling all night. I tried it, and no dice. It would start at all. It caught a couple times, but never for more than five seconds.
I did some research online to see what to do, and I read the horror stories. Most of them began with little more than a simple tune-up though: check spark plug, gas, oil, etc. So I put my mechanical hat on and instead of a computer, I set myself to dismantling the lawnmower.
I pulled down my tools and started pulling bolts off beginning with that gas tank. There was a screw on the top I figured had to come out first, and in doing so, I found the air filter...well, a hard sponge caked with mud and dirt that was supposed to be the air filter. So I washed the gunk off the sponge and set it to dry. I removed the gas tank, which was easy and all I found there was lots of old grass. I removed the spark plug and the business end of that part was black and caked with burned what-not. That was probably the big problem, but I went on. I checked the oil and found sludge.
Yeah, sludge. It looked like black paint. You know what color oil is? It's a sort of clear brown. Looks like thick tea (sort of). When I dumped the oil, this was something straight out of an oil derrick. So I was off to Wal-Mart with the Queen and Princesses to find a spark plug and oil to see if that would fix my problem, leaving the mower in pieces in the garage.
With the new parts in hand, I put it all back together and gave the cord a sharp tug. It roared to life and just purred. Time was, I would have said it was broken and headed to Wal-Mart for another cheap mower (which is what this was), but I decided I didn't want to spend the money for another mower, since I need to save for the princesses to have school clothes. So I fixed it, even though strictly speaking, all it needed was a basic tune-up.
Still, it makes for a "growing up" experience for me, since I might not have tackled it once upon a time. And it made me the hero of the moment to the Queen, since I did just take the mower apart to see what the deal was instead of giving up on it.
One thing I have found with age and how I've changed as I've grown up is another age milestone. As I look back, there was another age where the mind changed of its own accord, and I began to see things just a little differently -- I would almost say, more mature. This age is nothing new, though, as Tolkien nabbed it in The Lord of the Rings in the age in years that a Hobbit comes of age. This point wasn't made in the movie version at all because Frodo's age wasn't discussed on screen, but that birthday party at the beginning wasn't just for Bilbo -- Bilbo and Frodo have the same birth date. When Bildo turned 111, Frodo turned 33, and this party served also as Frodo's "coming of age" party. There's a lot to be said for 33 as an age of fuller maturity, because I grew up a bit at 33, more so than any age before it. I can't explain it beyond that, but during my 33rd year, I managed to get a lot of things in order that I just didn't feel capable of doing before, and despite the fact that my financial life remains in a bit of a crisis, it's more in line now than it has ever been before -- another point for the hero in our story.
And finally, you may have noticed that my subject includes something about spiders. Well, I figured the other resident of our house needed an entry, but not one to him/herself. Lately, we'd noticed a decline in the number of ants, and we weren't overrun by these red and black bugs we called stinkbugs. We they really stinkbugs? I dunno. The jury's out on that. But we noticed that recently there aren't any of those around at all, and we just didn't concern ourselves with it.
The other night, though, we think we found out why. As we were leaving the house, the Queen gave a sharp gasp when she saw a large, flat spider sitting on the wall next to our entry door. He wasn't moving at all and lay almost fully flat against the wall. He was probably four inches in diameter with his legs out like they were, and you could see (without getting close, mind you) the definition of his mouth pincers and such as he sat there. We have not seen him inside, and don't care to either, but figured that rather large arachnid was the reason we'd lost all the other, more numerous and annoying bugs we'd had before. We also figured since he was earning his keep and not going inside the house, he could hang out. If we find him inside, however, he's toast. We've seen him a couple more times, and believe me, we steer clear of him, and double check before we touch that or any other wall outside.
If we can snap a picture of him, I'll show him off.
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