Riding Lawnmowers - A Machinist's View

Talking with a colleague about riding lawnmowers the other day.

It's that time of year around here in Ohio.

He thought that a riding lawnmower symbolized the apogee of human evolution-

"What else demonstrates how far we have come than being able to sit down, ride around for a couple of hours, listen to some tunes, maybe enjoy a cold beverage, and at the end look around and say I did this? I mowed a couple acres of lawn."

He has a point. Our ability to engineer, combine bits of metal and ingenuity have made our lives better in so many ways.

During my time in the mills I kept score similarly with calculating how many cars could be made from the the dozen or so 180 ton heats of steel that we produced that day… or how many millions of razor blades or piano pins could be made from the last ingots of Open Hearth Steel we had in inventory before the plant closed?

Or the 14 frozen railroad bin cars that I personally unloaded one particularly nasty 4 to 12 shift back in 1974.

So in honor of my colleague's salute to engineering's contribution to human evolution, here are a couple of my favorite riding lawnmower photos. Enjoy!

(I wonder if the paint scheme merits a cease and desist letter?)

You know the wife will think you're having too much fun:

(Honey, can I go mow the lawn today? Please?)

(Maybe this guy ought to grow some lawn first...)

Pedal power riding mower

Chopper

Redneck Lawnmower