A warning to all....

[Charliebrn]

Yesterday, I was mowing with my mighty BX. I usually don't let my children play close to me while I mow, and when they are outside, i make sure they stay a good 15 feet away from me, just in case, you know? I had mowed the back lot 30 times during the summer, and had never hit the bag of fence ties that was buried in the weeds, but i did yesterday. You know the sort, horseshoe shaped pieces of heavy wire used to tie field fence to studded T-posts. What a racket it made, and I immediately killed the mower while I cleaned up. A hundred feet away, my trailer is parked, an 8x12 that I recently put some wood sides on so that i could haul some firewood. In the side, I found two good sized pieces of the ties embedded in the plywood sides. I guess i'm still in shock at the sight of this, and I can tell you all one thing. Never again will I mow with anybody outside. Ever. You don't realize the power of that mower until you see the wire embedded like a nail, a full 100 feet away from where your mower launched it. I thank God above that yesterday, the kids and the dogs were safely inside the house....

Play it safe, everyone....

Scott

 

[huckflynn]

Thanks for passing that along.

 

[snowman]

I had a similar experience a few months ago. Was mowing around the edge of the yard - about 50 feet from the house with the discharge facing the house. The mower caught a u shaped peice of metal that was in the grass and winged it right through a first floor screen; it slammed into a wood closet door - if it had been drywall, I'm sure it would have gone right through.

I try to be very careful and mow with the discharge chute facing away from potential target, but accidents happen. Usually mow when nobody's home just because of things like this.

 

[RichNJ]

I learned the same lesson. Was mowing close to the drive and picked up a stone that must have been in the grass. Heard it hit something, stopped the mower looked around and saw no damage. The next day my wife was wondering how the right rear tailight lens got broke on her new Minivan. Well, did I feel bad about that. Before this happened the rule was no kids or anyone else on the same side of the house as the mower. Now all cars must be in the garage and always point the discharge chute of the mower away from the house.

 

[Harv]

Yep.

I had a similar experience with a simple lawnmower years ago, so when my rotary cutter arrived, I wouldn't use it until I got chain guards for it. /w3tcompact/icons/tongue.gif

My story and a few follow-ups were posted back in this thread.

 

[RobertN]

When I was a kid, this one time I was sitting on the front porch step with my Uncle, in front of the front door. My dad was mowing the front yard with our Snapper push mower. The front yard was small, maybe 40x30.

All of the sudden, we heard a THWACK on the door. My uncle turned to see a dart buried in the front door, about 2" above his head.

turned out the neighbor kids had been playing with dart's. and had lost one on the edge of our front yard. That 21" mower caught it and flung it hard. If it had been only a couple inches lower, my uncle would have been mortally injured.

It doesn't take much, and can happen when and where you least expect it to.

RobertN in Shingle Springs Calif

 

[TWINKLE_TOES]

Rich
<font color=blue>The next day my wife was wondering how the right rear tailight lens got broke on her new Minivan. Well, did I feel bad about that.</font color=blue>

Did you feel bad enough to tell her you did it????/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Al

 

[TonyC]

Yep, many of us has a scary story. Harv brings up a good point..get some chain guards. You never know when some innocent bystander might wander into your work area, no matter how careful you are.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Speaking of taillights, I relayed this last year but it's always worth a laugh?

I was standing in the garage talking with the wife, the BX hadn't been used in a few days, and the garage wasn't heated or experiencing some rapid temp changes.

All of a sudden the tailight lense just FLEW off the BX with a POP. Landed on the ground. Gremlins? Bad Omen? Good Omen? Maybe fit too tight, but of all the places it could have fallen off!!! In the garage with the tractor not moving! A lot better then off somewhere where I'd never find it!

del

 

[Anonymous Poster]

This isn't a comment to the warning (it was a good one), but just a comment to let you know I do my best to liven up my day.

When our phones were updated 15 years ago, the old cable was left in the ground. Part of it did get dug up and was 15 feet away from the new line and on the ground or slightly buried. I dug it up once and freaked out as the phone company charges $$$$ when you do this. I relaxed after I realized it was the old goes-nowhere chunk of line.

Or course I was too dumb to put it in the trash, much better to let it get overgrown and move a little dirt over it later so after 5 years I could
DIG IT UP AGAIN AND PANIC!

DUH...

And speaking of buried things, I sometimes find old pieces of huge logging cable, some are short pieces, one I had to wait until I rented an excavator years later to pull out, it went forever and then started to move a couple of nice trees so I had to leave it. One of these days I'll drag the cutting torch over there and cut it off, in the meantime it just sits there waiting to get in my way...

del