Troy-Bilt...still tilling after all these years

Our Troy-Bilt, rear tine rototiller is old, really old.  We have been married for 30 years and this rototiller was my husband's father's tiller.  He died about 5 years before I met my husband and we lived together for 5 years before we got married.  So it has to be at least 40 years old.

 40 years old and still tilling.

 Over the years this tiller has really gotten the workout.  Gardens tilled are too numerous to count.  Lawns tilled so they could be reseeded......a lot of lawns.....too many lawns.  

And then there was today's job.  We rented a stump grinder over the holiday weekend to grind down all the stumps of the dead trees that we have had to cut down in the last 10 years.  Damn you emerald ash borer and Dutch elm disease.

There was one extremely large ash tree that we cut down that was at least 125 years old.  We counted the rings but without a magnifying glass we could only come close to the actual age of the tree.  Because the tree was so old, the lawn rose up around the tree.  After R ground the stump away there was a hill left behind.

Back and forth and 20 minutes later....fluffy dirt.

We raked all the excess wood chips and removed some dirt in an attempt to flatten out the area but the grassy part was still too high.  So it was time to haul out the old Troy-Bilt one more time.  Would it start?  Well of course it did.  It had a flat tire that needed air but those 40 year old tires are cracked and ready to be replaced.

Over the years, R has been very good about changing the oil and not leaving fuel in the tank over the winter.  We had to replace a starter and the recoil about three years ago but no biggie when you think about how many times it has been started.  The cord probably was a little dry rotted after all these years and was the reason it broke when R tried starting it manually.  We also needed to replace the muffler because it was no longer muffling anything.  Mufflers are cheap and do not last all that long even on new equipment.  The intense heat, steel, and moisture from combustion makes for rust in very short order.

You can see how dusty it is because we haven't had a good rain in awhile.

R probably tilled for about 20 minutes in the area of the ground down stump and about 5 feet around the stump area into the lawn.  We called it quits after he tilled because it gets darker sooner these days and we had some watering to do before we went inside for the night.

Remove some dirt,do a little raking, and throw down some grass seed.

I'm sure we will have to remove some dirt to lower that entire area but it won't be too hard to do.  The rear tine set up breaks up the soil so that it is loose and fluffy.  I have plenty of low spots in the yard so it will just be a matter of dirt musical chairs.  Move dirt from point A to point B and C and D and E......and so on and so on.

Nice fluffy soil.

If you are thinking of buying a rototiller but you can't afford a new rear tine Troy-Bilt......look for a used one.  They are made to last.  Invest in a tune up from a reputable garden shop that specializes in garden tractors and such and you will be ready to till yourself a garden or till up a lawn that has seen better days.

We also have a Troy-Bilt snow blower that we bought used.  We just love the electric start.  I always thought that electric start meant that your snow blower/thrower had a battery.  I don't know about you, but when it is 10 degrees outside, starting anything can be difficult.  Batteries can wear down before you actually get the blower/tractor running but not with this electric start.  This one uses a heavy duty extension cord.  Plug one end of the cord into the wall outlet and the other end into the plug outlet on the blower and turn the key.  Easy peasy.  No batteries to worry about running down. 

We purchased our used blower just before the polar vortex winters.  Those two winters were horrible.  I thought it would never quit snowing.  Thankfully we had the snow blower because we have a loooonnnng driveway.  Which reminds me that I need to talk to R about getting the snow thrower ready for winter because I heard we are suppose to have a bad winter because of La Nina.

It's always something.

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