The front lawn is still the color of a paper bag, and there's a gray ridge of plow snow at the end of the driveway that refuses to finish melting. But the thermometer in the garage read 52 degrees when I got home on Thursday, warm enough to work without gloves, and that's my signal. Every April I do the same round of chores before the mower comes out. This year I finally wrote the list down.
Putting the snowblower to bed
The Toro had a good first winter with us. Since I bought it used in November it cleared the driveway more times than I bothered to count, which for me is saying something, and the only repair was the rubber paddles in January, $48, which I should have checked before I handed over the cash.
Storage is the step that decides whether it starts next November, so I followed the manual for our model and filled in the vague parts with whatever Gary does:
- Topped off the tank with fresh gas mixed with fuel stabilizer and ran it for five minutes so the treated fuel made it through the carburetor.
- Then let it run until the tank was dry. I'd rather store it with nothing in there to go stale.
- Changed the oil while the engine was still warm.
- Washed the salt and grime off the housing and chute and touched up a few chips in the paint so they don't rust over the summer.
It lives under a cover in the back corner of the garage now, out of the mower's way.
The mower blade, and a spare
The EGO mower is starting its third season. Battery out first, always. Then onto its side, a scrap of 2x4 wedged against the blade so it can't turn, and the nut off. The blade was dull and a little nicked from a stick I didn't see last September.
I sharpened it in the vise on the workbench with a mill file, following the original angle, about 30 strokes per side, then checked the balance on an $8 cone balancer. An unbalanced blade shakes the whole mower. Mine was heavy on one end, so it got a few more strokes on that side until it hung level.
This year I also bought a second blade for $34, so I can swap in a sharp one in July and sharpen the dull one whenever I get to it. At work we'd call that safety stock. Tessa called it "a second blade," which is also accurate.
Batteries and cords
All the batteries spent the winter in the basement, since the cold garage is hard on them. This weekend I brought them out, wiped the contacts with a dry cloth, looked over the cases for cracks and charged each one: the EGO packs for the mower, the string trimmer and the leaf blower I bought last fall, and the DeWalt 20V packs, which have been going in and out all winter for indoor projects anyway.
Then the extension cords. We own five, which seems like a lot for a house this size until the day you need the long one. I uncoiled each one on the driveway, ran my hand down the full length feeling for nicks and crushed spots, and checked that every plug still had its ground prong. One 50-footer had a cut through the outer jacket about a foot from the end, probably from the snowblower auger in December. It went in the trash, not back on the hook. Gary owns a repair kit and offered, but that cord cost less than a pizza and I don't want to be the guy who trusted a patched cord.
The rest of the list
The quicker items went fast. I checked both ladders before ladder season: the feet, the rungs, the spreaders on the stepladder and the locks on the extension ladder. I cleaned last fall's dirt off the pruners and Tessa's garden tools and wiped them with a light oil. The snow shovels went up on the back wall and the rakes came down. The bucket of ice melt went to the basement stairs, where it will be forgotten until November.
New spending came to $42 for the spare blade and the balancer, plus stabilizer and oil already on the shelf. The grass won't need any of this for another couple of weeks, and for once I'll be ready before it is.
