Wasting time, saving money

The weather finally broke today after weeks of beastly heat and humidity culminating in nearly a full week of rainy days.

So I resolved to fire up the John Deere LA125 lawn tractor and harvest the yard.

It’s been more than a month since I mowed and, as I feared, the battery was dead. This is about the fifth year for that battery and I figured it was done for, so I called the guys down at Greenway Equipment – my local John Deere dealer – and priced a new battery. It was only $42.50, minus $10 for my old battery.

So I pulled the battery, put it in the back of the Lexus and drove down to Greenway on the southside of Jonesboro.

But when I plunked it down on the counter, the parts guy hooked up the tester and proclaimed it still functional and capable of 200 cranking amps, or something like that. The only problem was that it needed to be charged.

I was annoyed to have wasted a trip, but grateful that I saved myself the price of a new battery.

I reinstalled the battery, hooked up my BMW battery charger to it and am now waiting for it to revive in time to mow before sundown.