Police called on me for mowing the yard

[dobarker]

Thought you fellers would get a kick out of this.
A few weeks ago a neighbor of mine gave me 3 non-working push-mowers, I hadn't had the time to work on them until this weekend. Well, around 10am I got to working on the first one, got it running, noticed it burnt a little oil (about as much oil as it did gas) from sitting so long. I figured i'd mow the yard with it and try to get some fresh fuel ran through it and let the new oil try to set in.

As i'm mowing, I notice a few of the drivers passing through the neighborhood giving me dirty looks, possibly because my whole yard is covered in a light veil of blue smoke.

Halfway through the mowing process a Police car pulls up and the officer steps out and proceeds towards me through the smoke cloud of the bellowing mower. He laughed a bit with me and pointed at the other three mowers in the garage and asked if I could just use one that doesn't make a smoke screen across the street.

I love Lubbock police, the majority of them have a sense of humor

 

[Texas1911]

LOL ... someone called the police because you were burning a little oil in the mower? Do people not have the common courtesy or balls to go over and ask if you would mind using another one, or some fresh gas? If I cared so much to call the police I'd offer to get some fresh gas for the thing.

 

[West Texas]

I KNEW mowing the yard yourself is agasint the law!

 

[Texan2]

I'm gonna tell my wife I better not mow the yard myself, less the police get called. I will report back how that works out....

 

[West Texas]

I'm gonna tell my wife I better not mow the yard myself, less the police get called. I will report back how that works out....

Who would she call??? LOL!

 

[TrailDust]

That's as bad as Canada or New Zealand. In NZ you have to get a permit from the government to run gas-powered garden tools or to burn leaves in a government approved container. In Canada you need to be licensed to own, operate, or purchase any power tools. At the rate California is descending, I expect measures like this within the next ten years, but luckily I'll be gone way before then!

 

[kyletxria1911a1]

dont you know oil is now a controlled subtance

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Police called on me for mowing the yard

Nope. The police were called on you for polluting. You were just doing it in the course of mowing your yard.

 

[San Antone RR]

Tell the PD it is mosquito abatement.

 

[dobarker]

Nope. The police were called on you for polluting. You were just doing it in the course of mowing your yard.

From non running mower to running/polluting to running well. I call it progress.
If it's broke, it gets fixed, a dry seal needs to be moistened by oil in order to seal proper and it didn't make sense to just leave a mower running and not doing anything, I put it to use while it was recovering from it's illness.

It is all better now.

 

[zembonez]

Read somewhere that a new Briggs & Stratton 5HP mower puts out 16 times the amount of pollutants of a new car over 5 years (mower) or 60,000 miles (car) of use.

 

[dobarker]

Small motors are by nature, very nasty. When one burns oil it's not necessarily polluting much more than others, so much as making what it does visible, take into example a weed-eater or a 2 stroke dirt bike, they require the mix of oil with gasoline, mine was just a richer mix.

I bought an old 3.5HP diesel motor last year that I have plans on mounting on a garden tiller and running on used peanut oil, I'm curious what type of hype all the black smoke a small eco-diesel will bring.

And just a little extra perspective on polluting engines, a particular outboard boat motor called the "fat fifty" back in the late 50's dumped over 1/3 of the fuel it took to run into the water, modern motors make use out of a fuel over draw by re-routing it back to the supply, back then though when fuel was cheap and environmental concern was low, they just routed it out the lower gear unit.