You guys are preaching to the choir. I stopped buying new mowers about 20yrs ago. I dumpster dive or find freebies on Craigslist. If I really get stuck, there is a guy like Rusty about a mile down the street. He always has a resurrected mower out front for sale. He sells a 1/2 dozen a season, mebbe more. Been doing it for yrs. Curiosity got the better of me and I stopped and talked to the guy. He is the reason my dump finds petered out.

If there are a lot of traps, trim off the ick ones with sterilized clippers to stave off the badness from spreading. I agree about the plastic dome. VFT's do like a good dose of humidity, but not that much, and they do require air flow--which those cute plastic domes they sell them in do not. I would also recommend that if it came in one of those fitted plastic boxes, please remove the bottom part as well--and plant your flytrap in a generic plastic pot with drainage holes in the bottom. Place your VFT in the pot in a cottage cheese container, sushi tray or open topped 1 gallon fish bowl--something with at least 1" of space for water. VFT like to be submerged by approx 1/3 the pot height in water. The water should ideally be rain water, but water from a nearby stream would work. Some advise against this, but I used to use water from the downspout of my house (some people believe the chemicals from your roof can adversely affect your CPs--but I think it depends on the age of the roof and the materials involved)--and noticed no ill effects. Other options are distilled water from the grocery store, this is okay, but don't use deionized water--for the same reason its not considered potable--being DI means that its non-reactive for like lab experiments, but left for long opened and it can grow all kinds of weird bacteria--consider it an amoeba magnet--and bad for your plant. Something I've read from several sources and have used in a pinch, is to leave your tap water out, in a milk jug worked for me, with the lid off for about 48 hours. This will allow the chlorine that is usually in municipal tap water to evaporate off and should no longer be detrimental to your plant. Though if the municipality adds floride I would reconsider. Also something to remember with fly traps is 'not to play with the traps very often.' No one else has mentioned this yet, but the traps only last for about 4-6 closings each--then they will die and be replaced by another trap growing from the middle of the plant. But if you exhaust all the traps at once, you could potentially kill it. Fly traps don't really require feeding, even if they're inside. They only need about 2 or 3 small insects a year, and even in your house, some hapless insect might just wander into it about that many times. So only play with like one trap every couple months, if you just can't help yourself. The other thing that all things green mentioned that could save you is fly traps do need a winter rest period, for about 2 months in the middle of the winter. They get really unexciting during this time, and don't seem to grow at all. You may notice the traps getting all spindly (for this reason, I try not to buy VFT in the winter, and would advise you to do the same. The hardware store is just in it for the money, and if they're selling them right now, the plants probably haven't rested at all). This means keeping them cooler (40 or 50 degrees F should suffice--although some people just wrap them in tin foil and put them in the fridge (I haven't tried this yet)) and drier (just moist--not sitting in water)--possibly in your garage, until spring comes. If you don't do this the first year you might be okay, but you really must try to give it a rest every year, other wise the plant will exhaust its self. Also, though they are quite pretty, unless you want the seed, trim off any flower stalks you might see on the VFT as your plant will be less vigorous while growing the flower. For a great CP manual--if you're hooked--I recommend "The Savage Garden" by Peter D'Amato. Happy CP-ing!

I guess everyone has their pet way of doing it. I used an 'oil' which is actually a gun product called FP-10. Its a light amber oil that has some cleaning properties and sports a friction modifier so it still lubricates when dry. The way I feel about lubricating this assembly is I understand the reasons why some say don't lube, but Briggs & Stratton saw fit to include the felt oiler and a small hole to oil it periodically. I never even knew the hole or felt oiler were there so this part never got oiled since it was built in 1989. Now that I know, I'll probably give it a few drops every spring as long as the engine lasts. The way it's going it may be working after I'm gone. Since I am using a liquid oil, I obviously know it will migrate, but I have my doubts it will cause any trouble in the lower assembly simply because rotational force will sling it out, leaving only the residual lubricating effects, such as they may be. This is the reason I will oil it in the spring and run it immediately. The only other thing I have to work on with this mower is trying to balance the blade. The normal way won't really help. As I said above I had to 'make' a blade because the originals are obsolete. I found a generic 20" multi-purpose blade that looked like it would work but the two indexing slots did not extend close enough to the center hole to fit the driver. I filed them with a round file until I got the blade to snap into place, but I got a slight vibration. I think the indexing slot on one side has to be touched up so the blade can move to that side just a hair. Its going to be a trial and error deal but once I get it right I will scratch marks so I can take it off to sharpen/balance and get it back in the same position. If this mower wasn't absolutely perfect for the yard it now belongs to, I would have to talk myself out of going to all this trouble to keep it going. I think this is going to be the last go-around for it. The blade problem is a killer. The deck has a plenum under it of 14" diameter. The blade driver sits so a straight blade will just about hit the plenum, so any blade used has to dip at that location. I got lucky finding this blade that fits perfectly in that respect but every time I need a new blade now I have to modify the pin slots and go through the centering procedure to avoid vibration. Plus, everybody wants to mulch and this mower is not designed for that and simply doesn't have the power for it. It will discharge and bag great, though. Here is the last new blade I was able to get for it. You can see how it dips to clear the plenum. The plenum has a lot to do with adding velocity to the air in the 'vortex' part of the deck that leads to the discharge port. You can also see how close together the indexing pins are on the driver. I guess this picture was probably six or seven years ago and that blade is long gone. Under Deck

I was so saddened by that horrible event, but I do think plenty of things have changed, at least around where I live. It is FAR more difficult to enter a school nowadays, without being a parent, signing in, and wearing a nametag. Gates are locked and securely so. Classrooms have door-locks on the inside. Kids are trained (yes, sadly this) in what to do in the event of a school shooting or lockdown over threat. Teachers are trained as well. In fact, our local high school closed down for the day a couple weeks ago after a threat was written on a bathroom wall (a vague threat, at that). The student under suspicion no longer attends that school (now), I happen to know. However, security was increased on campus for at least the following week, a police car/officer on campus (I don't know how much or how often), an administrators were at the drop-off/entrance points for at least a week. There were flurries of emails, facebook posts, Nextdoor posts, etc, about the importance of vigilance and reporting anything that might be suspicious. And, I am aware that administration monitors some social media and there are avenues for kids reporting contextually threatening media posts. Our local elementary school is quite "hidden" from view, tucked into a residential neighborhood, but I know certain other elementary schools have put up screening barriers, taller fences, and landscaping to block playgrounds from view (to the consternation of some parents questioning that...but I thought it a great idea, personally). So, I wouldn't say nothing has changed. I know what you are getting after, and I don't disagree, but strides have been made in student and campus safety. I hope it's nationwide, but at least in a couple districts near me, a lot of things have changed.