Though not many, there are times when I miss living in an apartment. These times usually coincide with my having to mow the lawn after letting it nearly go to seed. When we bought this house with a tiny yard, <strike>we</strike> I decided it would be best to get a Reel Mower. That way we wouldn’t have to spend money on gas or oil, plus the maintenance costs would be lower and as a last added bonus we’d get more exercise pushing it around the yard.
…
Yes, yes, you can stop laughing now.
…
No really, stop laughing at me.
…
Bastards.
…
Anyway, we got one and before winter hit we used it maybe twice and it still seemed like an excellent idea. Now that summer is here I’m really beginning to feel that added bonus. Especially when I’ve had a cold for a week. A cold that had me coughing up huge chunks of flem, keeping me from going out and mowing the lawn in bits & pieces as I meant to do this week.
Instead, I just spent several hours fighting my lawn which had patches a foot or 2 high. Those of you with powered mowers are probably thinking “so what?”. Those of you with reel mowers are (hopefully) thinking “you poor bastard.”
You see, oh users of powered mowers, when you run across patches this tall a reel mower tends to bend the grass stalks down into the rest of the grass so they pop back up after you pass by the taller bits. To mow patches like this with a reel mower, you either:
- run at the patch, lift one side above the height of the tallest piece of grass at the last moment, and drop the spinning blade on top.
- or you use hand shears and chop it even more manually than with the reel mower (or you cheat and just pull the tall bit out).
With only one or 2 spots like this, it is not much of a problem but when you get to half the lawn it becomes a much bigger issue. Add in upper 80°, 50-60% humidity and you’ve got yourself a long, painful evening a head of you. Or at least I did when I started around 6:30 this evening1.
Still for all my complaining, once I finally finish with the lawn I do get a real sense of accomplishment out of doing all the work. And I’m meeting more of our neighbors than Ariesna because I’m out working on the lawn every week2. So when we attend neighborhood functions, more people tend to recognize me as that idiot nice fellow who was out working on the lawn. This seems to irk her a bit, but I don’t mind. 😀
1 I finally gave up the fight around 9:30 with only 1 long patch of grass left to mow.
2 When I’m not sick. Usually. Ok, I’m out there at least every other week. Or so. *grin*
