DD has been having trouble with her lawnmower. She had a high school GF come and spend a few days with her last week. She mowed grass for DD one day while she was there and DD was working.

For those of you that don't know, DD lives 120 miles from us, lost her DH to cancer almost 3 years ago now and so a single Mom with 2 boys, Hunter(who is 8) and Drew. (4 years, going on 30!) She bought a house and of course could use help with somethings that need a man. There is no end to things that need a male touch.

She was out in the backyard trying to start her mower and having trouble.

Rather than explain it all I am going to copy and paste what she emailed me last night.

(BTW, Drew is OBSESSED with John Deere tractors and pretty much anything John Deere (and cows!)thanks to his Uncle Justin! (DSIL)

Here is her email:

Well remember I told you Kari mowed my lawn last week? well over the weekend I did see what looked like oil had pooled on the deck of the mower...I thought, no it couldn't be, it must be dirt and water. LOL well pulled it out tonight, and it looked liek a little bit more....tried starting it, and no luck. pulled off the air filter cover and it was DRIPPING, oil. The air filter! this guy from back behind me....asked if I needed any help, he came over, and said yeah you definitely need a new filter....pulled out the spark plug, and said that was all wet. checked the oil said it was full....but it smelled like gas in there. good god! LOL. dried out the spark plug and started it with the filter off and it started and blew out black smoke for a bit...every time he went to put the filter back on it died. so went and got a new filter and some oil, and he changed the oil and showed me how to do it. that was nice of him! so now I can't say I don't know how!!! LOL I'll do it again in the fall before I store it away. Also I think I might buy a new blade. I knwo I can get it sharpened, but I don't want to deal with that hassle and I don't even knwo where to take it. anyway, I wanted to mow my entire lawn and bag, but after all that running around only had time to mow & mulch the back. but the mower purrs like a kitten now! LOL

He thought that maybe seh mowed with the choke on the entire time. And some times you did have to manually push that choke back down as it wouldn't go down. he told me not to even use the choke for awhile.

I got the filter and oil at ace hardware, and thats where I saw the blades...I thought ohhhh I should buy one of those!! but didn't know what size, so that will have to wait.

I've never met this guy before, he lives on the end, back behind me...he must have been in his back yard and seen me struggling with the stupid thing. I told him I'd pay him for doing the oil change, and he said not to worry about it. Drew showed him his dollar and was going to give it to him to change the oil, and the guy gave Drew a dollar and said "here, this is for your John Deere fund" LOL (drew was talking about john deere mowers)

Me again. That just made my heart smile!! A woman has to learn these things I guess, heck I don't know I could do half of what DD does! I could put gas in the mower and if it runs great, if not I'd be lost.

What a nice guy to do that! I guess it took the most part of the evening and he'd never met her, tho they have lived there now for a couple years.