Just How Many Ways Can I Destroy A Riding Lawn Mower Deck?

And how was your weekend? It certainly was the complete opposite of the Memorial Day Weekend which showered us with, well rain and temperatures in the upper 40s to low 50s.

Not so this past weekend with plenty of sunshine and temperatures around 90 pretty much everywhere in the Southern Tier of New York and Northeastern Pennsylvania. Hopefully you got the opportunity to get out and enjoy what I would call a midsummer weekend.

My weekend was basically a two parter. On Saturday, I got to DJ a prom. It was the first time back playing music for a school in almost 2 years. I had fun, except for lugging and setting up a lot of heavy equipment under a blazing sun and 90 degree temperatures. But it would have been much worse if it was a week earlier, so I'm not complaining.

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On Sunday, I headed back to camp to tackle a few projects. I've had the camper open for a month now, and I'm still unpacking things from winter storage. The lawn around my camper had about a two week growth since I last mowed, and you know how fast grass grows around here.

I just had a friend at camp overhaul the mow deck after I almost burned up my rider mower last fall after mulching leaves which got hot enough under the mow deck to catch fire. I decided to first tackle by brother's lawn. He camps across the street from me and hasn't been down to open up his camper yet.

Being the good older brother I am, I decided it would be the right thing to do, especially since the grass around his camper was higher than mine. I mowed about two passes before my rider mower shut down on me. I could run with the mow deck shut off, but once I engaged it, the engine would shut down.

For a minute, I thought, how could I have possibly break the mow deck that was just overhauled,  that fast? I know I'm good at breaking things, but this is just ridiculous. Turns out, I had the deck set too low and the high wet grass was too much for the mow deck to handle. So, I raised the deck a couple of levels and the problem was solved.

My friend who works on everything I break, commented on what bad shape my mow deck was in before he replaced all the parts including all three blades which were horribly bent. I guess I need to stop running over tree roots that are above ground, and not mow so low that I'm shaving all the grass off the lawn. It has been quite an expensive lesson.