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Saga of the Royal Leaf Vacuum!

KingTotsalot

Official Tot Lot King
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Joined
Mar 18, 2011
Messages
10,421
Location
Mabelvale, south of Little Rock, Arkansas
A month before Christmas, the Queen decided she wanted a DR leaf vacuum, and of course, She also had to buy a new riding lawn mower matched to the vacuum. So the mower is delivered and KT got to try it out just mowing some of the Royal Lawns...then the Royal Leaf Vacuum arrived...a huge box which we had to go get at the shipper. Managed to get them to load it and when KT arrived back at the Castle, He chained off the box to a tree and drove out from under it. After unboxing and a few hours of assembly, oil and gas were added and it runs fine...gets connected to the mower and off the Queen goes! After a couple of hours, Queen rides up the driveway and says it threw the drive belt, so the rider is loaded in the trailer and back to the dealer...no problem, they installed the belt and when we get home the Queen drives it off the trailer and makes it 15 feet down the Royal Driveway and the belt breaks!:shock::shock:

So back to the dealer...this is 2 days before Christmas, dealer says must have been cut and my mechanic did not catch it..our fault, if you pay for a new belt, we will install for free! So we wait and wait and wait...he had to order the belt and it was mailed by USPO, right in the middle of the Christmas package clusterflub! :laughing::laughing:

Well, it finally arrived yesterday and they installed it right away, and KT picked it up this morning. Price of belt...$50. Got it home, Queen got it off the trailer and hooked up to the Royal Leaf Vacuum. 3 hours of hard work later, the setup is working fine and the Royal Yard is looking mighty fine! Dealer said next time I order something from those folks, it is being shipped fedex! :laughing::laughing:

KT told him about his Cowboys Ave. sign and all the PO screw ups with its delivery!
 
Congrats on the leaf vacuum, glad it's working now. I've decided to let part of my yard (total about 1.25 acres) go back to nature, let the grass grow, let the leaves lay where they fall.
 
Congrats on the leaf vacuum, glad it's working now. I've decided to let part of my yard (total about 1.25 acres) go back to nature, let the grass grow, let the leaves lay where they fall.

Understandable, but the product from this effort will be mulch for the Queen's Royal Garden! :D:D

Will you be doing camo on it as well ?:laughing::laughing:

Nope, for even tho the rider is not a Kubota, it is Kubota orange, matching the two Kubota tractors we already have! :lol::lol:
 
My leaf accumulation may be less than yours, but mine disappear after running over them with my John Deere rider with the mulch kit a couple of times.
 
My leaf accumulation may be less than yours, but mine disappear after running over them with my John Deere rider with the mulch kit a couple of times.

That's fine for you, but it does not prep any leaves and gather them into a mulch pile for next year's Royal Garden. Each to his own. KT observed the Castle's Royal Grounds this morning and they are looking nice, especially when compared to the nearest neighbor's yards, which are leaf covered. :laughing::laughing:
 
That's fine for you, but it does not prep any leaves and gather them into a mulch pile for next year's Royal Garden. Each to his own. KT observed the Castle's Royal Grounds this morning and they are looking nice, especially when compared to the nearest neighbor's yards, which are leaf covered. :laughing::laughing:

If you do the neighbors yard you get mulch for the garden :laughing:
 
Ah your highness tis lucky you are. I reside in the north woods of Michigan, my fall leaf pile is the size of a motor home and I have to use a backpack blower, and a lawn sweeper to build the pile around the chipper shredder next to where my mulch pile is located. I 'm glad you were able to finally attain your quest, and finish the stately royal grounds. Well done sire.
 
Ah your highness tis lucky you are. I reside in the north woods of Michigan, my fall leaf pile is the size of a motor home and I have to use a backpack blower, and a lawn sweeper to build the pile around the chipper shredder next to where my mulch pile is located. I 'm glad you were able to finally attain your quest, and finish the stately royal grounds. Well done sire.

Royal Thanks, hoser! KT certainly understands your situation and the Royal Family would have had this new mulching set up years ago, but the cost of raising Prince John always took precedent over the mulching of leaves. For years, We were satisfied with just mowing over the leaves as they fell with KT's trusty Kubota tractor with a 60" belly mower. Now KT only has to keep the overgrowth knocked down with that set up....this past fall it was around 5' tall, but the olde Royal 4WD tractor just ate it all up! Had to make a second pass over it a week or so later to let it have time for some of the vegetation to pop back up so it could get chewed back down!
 
Update

Well, the Queen has the new vacuum-mower set up now working well! Seems that nothing is inherently wrong with the set up, for she has used it several time now and it continues to start and run properly. Me thinketh that the problem was primarily due to a weak belt from the factory that just quickly wore out.

:D:D:D
 
Because we want it delivered intact and in a timely manner! Which is much better than the USPO has done in the past couple of months. no kidding.

I've related this story before, but I've made FedEx my carrier of last resort because of the time I ordered 12 1-liter bottles of soda packed in a styrofoam container and got 11 sticky 1-liter bottles of soda in a plastic garbage bag.

Later, I got a delivery notification from FedEx, but the package wasn't there. It was delivered later that day by a driver who didn't want to carry his scanner, so he just scanned all his packages as delivered once he reached the delivery area. I did have USPS pull this stunt once also, but it was just a lazy substitute carrier, not the usual guy.

And while anecdote 2 was during COVID times, anecdote 1 was well before the current mess started.

-- Tom
 
I've related this story before, but I've made FedEx my carrier of last resort because of the time I ordered 12 1-liter bottles of soda packed in a styrofoam container and got 11 sticky 1-liter bottles of soda in a plastic garbage bag.

Later, I got a delivery notification from FedEx, but the package wasn't there. It was delivered later that day by a driver who didn't want to carry his scanner, so he just scanned all his packages as delivered once he reached the delivery area. I did have USPS pull this stunt once also, but it was just a lazy substitute carrier, not the usual guy.

And while anecdote 2 was during COVID times, anecdote 1 was well before the current mess started.

-- Tom

Certainly, everyone has different experiences with different carriers, KT understands that. Just this morning, KT took a Priority 2 day small package to the USPO for shipment to North Carolina. While standing in line, His Majesty had to listen to the "lady" ahead of Him complaining about a 2 day Priority package she was expecting that took 45 days, mostly because it was hung up in Cleveland for 30 days, stuck in the crush of pre-Christmas mail this past year. But she was griping to the poor teller as if was her fault it got held up! Honestly, yes, someone screwed up in the system...but consider this..with Covid-19, even our local PO had 5 out of 12 people that work there come down with that stuff....that's around 40%. Lose 40% of the workers in any system and see how efficient it is.

So, the combination of the Christmas Rush, many more people ordering online, and workers out with Covid or having to quarantine because one of their co-workers came down with it, just racked the system in all directions.

KT came back to the Castle and told the Queen, He is sure glad He never had to work for the USPO system! No wonder some workers go "postal"! :shock::shock:
 
Certainly, everyone has different experiences with different carriers, KT understands that. Just this morning, KT took a Priority 2 day small package to the USPO for shipment to North Carolina. While standing in line, His Majesty had to listen to the "lady" ahead of Him complaining about a 2 day Priority package she was expecting that took 45 days, mostly because it was hung up in Cleveland for 30 days, stuck in the crush of pre-Christmas mail this past year. But she was griping to the poor teller as if was her fault it got held up! Honestly, yes, someone screwed up in the system...but consider this..with Covid-19, even our local PO had 5 out of 12 people that work there come down with that stuff....that's around 40%. Lose 40% of the workers in any system and see how efficient it is.

So, the combination of the Christmas Rush, many more people ordering online, and workers out with Covid or having to quarantine because one of their co-workers came down with it, just racked the system in all directions.

KT came back to the Castle and told the Queen, He is sure glad He never had to work for the USPO system! No wonder some workers go "postal"! :shock::shock:

One of my "favorite" USPS experiences was when I received a hardback book bent in 3 (think shaped sort of like a "U") because someone slammed the truck gate on it.

When ordering sodas from Amazon Prime (Pantry, at least), I've had several experiences where I had to get a refund because they drove something (forklift, package mover, whatever) into the package, puncturing some of the cans.

In my experience, and ONLY MY experience, UPS works best for the things I get.

-- Tom
 
I had the day off and was expecting my metal detector to be returned from being fixed. I live in an apartment and the worker from Fed-Ex just left an attempt to deliver notice on my mailbox without checking to see if I was home. I had to take off and miss work the next day to catch the driver in the parking lot to get my package.
 
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