Made another pass over the Victory Garden - the portions susceptible to straight-line attacks that don't intercept the planted area, anyway - with the tiller.
Afterward, I found that the long garden house was wrapped around the tiller.
I'd been very careful not to have the tiller anywhere near the house while the PTO was engaged!
Hypothesis: After I finished, and had the PTO off but the tiller still at just-clearing-the-ground level, I went over a bump, causing the tiller to dip, contacting the house as I drove over it... and, for some reason, the PTO clutch was only mostly disengaged. Well... I had been occasionally hearing sounds that sounded like the tiller was rotating a little while the PTO was off, so maybe that's a thing?
Hmph. PTO doesn't do reverse. I'll have to turn the dagnab tiller backward by hand (presumably with the aid of a suitable lever). Maybe disengage the PTO shaft, determine which way is "till", and turn it countertillward.
But right now it's lunch time.
Update: Hose is disentangled (condition not yet verified). But in order to disconnect the PTO shaft so I could rotate it manually, I had to carve up the guard, because... well, I'm guessing that the root cause is the Pat's Easy Change; the silver mittens result in the shaft extending a couple of inches further than normal, so I suppose when the tiller was in its maximally-down position, sinking into soft soil, the two halves of the guard ceased to overlap, and when I subsequently raised the implement the halves mashed together instead of re-overlapping. So I had to cut off the smooshed ends in order to retract the shaft; there's another little project now, getting a new PTO shaft guard, maybe cutting it just a little longer than the original, and installing it.
Anyway, I got overheated while reconnecting the PTO shaft. Taking a water break now. Have to head back out soon and finish cleaning up the mess I made. Maybe this evening I can get back to the day's originally-planned task, planting various squashes and melons.
Update 2: The hose seems to have survived the encounter, or at least it doesn't seem to be leaking.
I had the geometry backwards up above: the cessation of overlappery must have happened when I raised the implement to the official travel position (I normally carry it lower, but just before I discovered the hose problem I was backing up into rising terrain, so I decided having it raised all the way might be prudent), and then it jammed up when I lowered it.
Time to dash back out and mow an area that normally has hose running through it, as long as the hose is already out of the way.
Update 3: If it ain't one thing, it's another. So there I was, mowing a blackberry-infested walkway, when the mower gave a mighty lurch and started mowing lopsidedly. Like, seriously short on the left side. I finished up the urgent-today stuff (on which lopsided scalping is OK for now), and returned to the barn to examine the situation. Looks like the mower somehow lost a retaining pin, and then the sinister control arm detached itself from its support plate. Shouldn't be too much bother to fix, but for now I have to be indoors.
Update 4: One hitch pin (from an assortment; not quite the proper size) and one ½" flat washer (should have been a fender washer, but somehow I don't seem to have a fender washer assortment) later, the mower deck is properly under control again.
... Would a "sinister control arm" be a KAOS arm, or what?
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