Well, my MTD Yard Machines tractor finally bit the dust. I had put so many hours into fixing the thing over the years....this time I wasn't going to be able to fix it - even with help from my dad. Christl was driving it and said she head a banging noise and it stalled. She tried starting it but it stalled again. The third time she tried it wouldn't turn over. I feared the worst and when I got home and looked at it - I came to realize it's short life as my tractor had come to a close. Something apparently broke inside the engine and now it was seized. There was also a puddle of oil on one of the pulleys below the engine. There was oil on the dipstick but apparently something had caused oil to leak out of the block somewhere. I bought the tractor new from Hechinger's back in 1999. It was part of the greatest spending frenzy of my life. I bought the house, the shed AND the tractor. In MTD's defense, I must say that I didn't take the best care of the tractor. It had been left outside on several occasions. Even when stored in the shed it came under attack from mice making nests in the nice warm engine. I did change the oil and plugs, etc occasionally but most often it was while I was fixing some problem with the tractor.

Sooo, I decided it was time to test the John Deere name. I spent, what I consider, a ton of $$$ of this thing Saturday at Lowe's in Bethlehem. It has a 54" deck and a fairly tight turning radius - 18-inches. It also has a 23-hp Briggs & Stratton engine it it that I hope will last under whatever strain I can throw at it. I don't even know if I can hook up a tiller attachment to it but that might be one thing I'd do and possibly add a snowblower. Other than that I'm just hoping it'll handle the light to medium hauling I do without too much stress. It barely fits in my shed. That's going to be kind of a pain because I didn't have much room in there to begin with.
The big question now is what do I do with the old tractor. I'd like to think it's worth something to somebody. Maybe the engine isn't totally shot and can be fixed relatively easily? I don't know. Right now I'm just enjoying the back end of the long Memorial Day weekend. I'll probably try to do a little more planting since Christl is anxious for me to get all that stuff out of the foyer. Plus I'm sure I'll have to fire the tractor up when we have my parents and neighbors over today. My fingers are crossed.....I'm planning to be a little more PM conscious and I'm hoping the John Deere name lives up to it's reputation. I've read some posts in which people say not to spend the money on the LA100 line (mine is the LA175) but rather to go to the X-line. It was a considerable price jump to go to the X line and still get a 54-inch deck. I'm sure they're built even better than the LA100 series but (knock on wood) the LA175 has got to last longer than my old MTD. By the way, for posterity's sake - the MTD was a 20-hp 46-inch cut. I didn't want to go any smaller deck-wise. With John Deere's LA100 line it was either 42, 48 or 54-inch. The LA175 is the top of that series. As I said, my fingers are crossed.

Happy Memorial Day.