Miller’s Last Mower Clinic

by Lynn R. Miller of Singing Horse Ranch
photos by Renee Russell

November of ‘08 I agreed to do one last mower clinic at the Mississippi Workhorse Workshop of two of my dearest friends, Kenny and Renee Russell. Why the last one? Because I’m getting ancient and stiff and because, like the proverbial sports star of old, I had visions of going out at the top of at least one of my games. So I figured we’d have ten good students and a single candidate mower which, with luck we might rebuild in three days. And by luck I mean, hopefully the mower would not require openheart surgery (as in gear removal and/or axle removal).

That long weekend proved to be one of the most challenging of my life. First, over fifty people showed up, second, 8 mowers showed up for evaluation and rebuild, and third during the workshop I learned of the passing of my mother.

As Kenny and Renee had designed the mower rebuild clinic to be within one of his full-blown workhorse workshops. And as they had a bunch of excellent helping instructors including Jimmy Klein and Jim Butcher, and as several of the students had only passing interest in the mowers, I figured we had a very slight chance of pulling it off. So we went through evaluating the mowers as if they were delivered wounded at a mobile surgical hospital in a combat zone. Two mowers were deemed to require tuneups, so we set those aside for the time being. (One mower was so torn apart and crippled that I kept to myself my conviction that it could never be made right and wasn’t worth attention unless we finished the remaining 5 in good time.) Two of the remaining five proved to require “open heart” surgery. It looked grim for results. So I set up ‘triage’ teams of students and we went to work on the first three mowers simultaneously, assuming the best we would get was lots of examples for education purposes. But the efforts were monumental, the students fantastic and we managed to achieve what must be a world record! We rebuilt to field ready condition six McCormick No.9 mowers and in just 2.5 days! And that while everyone was taking part in a widely diverse and most excellent workhorse workshop. It was nothing short of phenomenal and a shared experience I will always treasure.

At the Russell Workshops great care is taken to give each and every student ample time with the lines in their hands BUT not before clear and concise instruction is delivered.