New Toy Alert

I'm not a huge fan of lawnmowing. Nor am I a huge fan of lawn mowers. Nor any machinery really.

Which is ironic, because I have nearly 2 acres of lawn & more small engined machines on the property than most people have in their lifetimes.

And in my defense, I inherited most of these machines when we bought the property.

I brought my own chainsaw and a linetrimmer, but in addition to that I now have:

Another chainsaw
Another bigger (you have to wheel it around) linetrimmer
A chipping machine
A cheap lawnmower
An ancient ride-on mower (Countax brand, although remove the "a", and move the "o" and you can guess how I pronounce it) which no longer picks up the clippings & mainly flattens the lawn rather than cuts it.
An old farm trike, which we've only managed to start twice because the pull start is so munted.

And there are sundry electric devices too - a yard blower, which is a waste of space, and a nut de-husking machine, which looks like junk thrown into a heap & bolted together, but it works real well.

The ride-on has caused the most trouble, it's estimated at 20 years old & has already cost us more than $1k getting the catcher fixed, which lasted nearly a year.

We've muddled through Autumn & Winter with the mowing, but the spring flush beat us this weekend.

It takes, they say, 5 hours to mow all of our lawn. I wouldn't know because I've never done the whole lot in one go. And the last few months have hardly seen 5 hours of sustained dry weather.

This weekend we bit the bullet & decided we needed a new mower - not just a mower actually, but something to tow the trailer around the property since we can't get the trike running.

So down to Borat we went (Note, he just looks like Borat & has an unidentifiable European accent). I was thinking a John Deere, because everyone tells me they're the Stihl or Husqvarna of the mower world - ie, reliable & long lasting. We've put this purchase off for a while because quite frankly, we could buy two relatively new model Japanese cars for what one of these things goes for.

But Borat recommended a Kiwicat Cheetah II, which looks like the sport version of the Cuntox (did I say that?). He said the things never break down & they're made from standard parts, and a Honda engine & they do a great job.

So we took him at his word, we could have bought 1.5 2nd hand japanese cars for the same price, but what the hey!

Anyway, bottom line is Mrs Llew is pleased with the croquet lawn for the first time in 2 years. It was worth it.

I still hate doing lawns, but this thing has twice the cutting width & should therefore get through the lot in 2.5 hours! We'll see.

Oh - and it is Kiwi made!!

Next week perhaps, adventures in selling old ride-on mowers & farm trikes on Trademe.