As I mentioned in my last blog "Facciamo gli erbi" the grass and weeds on the orto (vegetable garden) are growing a vista d’occhio (before our eyes). As we don’t have a cow or a goat the only practical way of keeping 500 square meters of land under control is a decespugliatore (strimmer or brush cutter). Unfortunately il nostro vecchio decespugliatore (our old brush cutter) has gone into permanent hibernation, i.e. è defunto (is dead), so we’ve had to buy a new one.

Our new decespugliatore came with a nice thick manuale d’istruzioni (instruction manual), which turned out to be pretty useless due to a lack of clear diagrams. However, once we had worked out through the powers of deduction how to assemble the thing we found that the booklet did at least contain fairly comprehensive instructions for getting it started. Here they are in the original Italian with my translation into English:

Accensione e spegnimento del motore (Switching the engine on and off)

Accensione a motore freddo: (Starting the engine when cold:)

1. posizionare il pulsante di STOP/START nella posizione START (set the STOP/START button to the START position)

2. premere con delicatezza la pompa di avviamento ripetutamente (7-10 volte) fino a quando la benzina arriva alla pompa (press the starter pump gently and repeatedly (7-10 times) until petrol enters the pump)

3. a freddo: tirare la leva dell’aria verso l’alto nella posizione chiusa (when cold: pull the choke lever upwards in the closed position)

4. tenere il decespugliatore con la mano sinistra e tirare la maniglia di avviamento fino a quando sentite una resistenza e avviate 5 o 6 volte energicamente fino all’avviamento (hold the brush cutter with your left hand and pull the starting handle until you begin to feel resistance, then pull 5 or 6 times until starting occurs)

5. spingere verso il basso la leva dell’aria poiché troppi tentativi di avviamento con la leva dell’aria chiusa potrebbe causare l’ingolfamento del motore e la difficoltà di avviamento (push the choke lever downwards because too many attempts at starting with the choke lever closed might cause the engine to flood and make starting difficult)

6. lasciar scaldare il motore prima d’iniziare a lavorare (let the engine warm up for a while before starting to work).

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Accensione a motore caldo: (Starting the engine when hot:)

se il motore è caldo basta tirare ripetutamente la maniglia di avviamento fino all’avviamento del motore. In questo caso non bisogna toccare la leva dell’aria. (if the engine is already hot, simply pull the starting handle repeatedly until the engine starts. In this case, there is no need to adjust the choke lever.)

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Spegnimento motore: (Switching the engine off:)

per spegnere il motore spostare il pulstante STOP/START nella posizione STOP. (in order to switch the engine off, shift the STOP/START button to the STOP position.)

However, we also made the mistake of reading all the health and safety advice that the booklet wanted to give us, e.g. Attenzione  – pericolo: Gli scarichi del motore contengono sostanze nocive che possono causare cancro, difetti della nascita o altri danni nella riproduzione! (Warning – danger: discharge from the engine contains harmful substances that can cause cancer, birth defects, and other reproductive damage!)

So it looks like we need to wear some kind of chemical suit complete with breathing apparatus in order to safely get close to this decespugliatore. But our biggest problem remains this: Attenzione: prima dell’accensione assicurarsi che non vi siano persone nelle vicinanze! (Warning: make sure there are no people in the area before starting!) So, just how do we get it started if no one can go near it? hmmm… perhaps there’s a remote control in the box!