To hear Cris Harris tell it, his new Dixie Chopper Iron Eagle mower is made of... well, iron!

Harris cornered Dixie Chopper officials at their National Farm Machinery Show booth in Louisville, bending their ears singing the praises of his Iron Eagle 2350.

And it didn't take long for Harris to fall in love with the Iron Eagle he purchased late last summer from Roger Zerkle at the ZDE dealership in Flat Rock, Ill.

"What impressed me was that the first hour we had the thing, my son (he's 13) was mowing across the yard and he hit something and the engine just died," recalled Harris, who lives in Crawford County, Ill., about an hour southwest of Terre Haute, Ind.

He had that horrible sinking feeling that they had wrecked the deck or ruined the engine before they had even officially signed the loan paperwork to buy the Iron Eagle.

His son had run over a three-foot shackle rod that had been stuck in their yard to mark the presence of a drain. "I couldn't believe he did that," Harris said. "We had mowed around that for a year."

That shackle rod wrapped itself around the blade and locked everything up.

"It just ate it," Harris said. "It was all corkscrewed up in there and I literally had to unscrew it from the blade."

The Iron Eagle may not have spared the rod, but it certainly spoiled the child. He was one lucky boy with the mower showing no damage from the mishap.

"I was impressed," Harris continued, "that it could eat a 3/8ths-inch shackle rod, kill the mower dead and yet not hurt it the slightest bit."

Harris bought the mower to replace an old 42-inch Dixon he had used to mow his three-acre property, along with a nearby church yard and a retired neighbor lady's lawn.

"We probably mow four hours a week with it," he said. "Compared to what I had before, it just drives and cuts a whole lot better. I didn't even test-drive anything else.

"You've got a good product," Harris added in an unsolicited testimonial. "I like it. I like the deck. I like that the hour meter is built in. Everyone who's driven it has liked it."

"I have no regrets, nothing negative to say at all. I would recommend it to anyone with similar (lawn-mowing) needs."