Agreed. His technique with the regular hoe is wrong. Should be using the corner of the hoe. The flat /straight edge of the hoe is for hilling. I learned from watching the neighbor farmer Noah who used to hoe acres of field corn before herbicides were used. He would wear out a hoe in 1 summer.
If you get the pop, what happens if you move to run and then try and start? I reread your post about the spark. On mine it seems like I have to give it hard,fast pulls when starting. It's my only mtronic saw that takes more than 4 pulls to start. (I have 4)
Try this from cold. Push lever whole way down to choke,start,leave on choke for a bit, then blip the throttle to run position. From warm just set to run position,start. Not sure why but 261's are fussy starters. Good luck.
Not sure of your exact location but there is a produce auction in Ethridge TN. The name is Plowboy auction. Google it.. They may have sweet potato plants and other miscellaneous vegetable plants and flowers this time of year.
Rain,rain and more rain. Not much garden activity for a bit. I do see some asparagus starting to poke through. Might be enough in a day or 2 for supper.
Been running the 261/462 combo for several years. Good 2 saw plan. Ran the 500 and wasn't super impressed compared to the 462. Not sure how close you are to York Co but you're welcome to come over and run my 462.