Pulled in with the dogs a little after 4:30 pm. So far, this year’s Spring has failed to impress; temps are in the high 40s with drizzly, intermittent rain. Today’s trip is a short, goal-oriented one: I’ve come to collect all of the disappointing riding mowers from the pole barn.

Two weeks ago, I came up pulling dad’s trailer with a 2011 John Deere X320 as cargo. This, friends, is quite the mower. Hank Hill himself would weep at its beauty. Whomever owned it and traded it in at Riesterer and Schnell’s Chilton branch took exquisite care of it–the plastic parts look washed and wax and not a single piece of trim is damaged, missing, or out of place. Really, the only signs of its true age (apart from the 320 hours on the engine clock) are some minor paint flaking and rust spots on the 48″ deck. Hell, it’s even got a brush bar on the front so the hood will hold up to my inevitable piloting ignorance. Oh, and the mower came with a Power Flow bagger unit, which means it’s ready to tow around the NASCAR trailer from day one.