Spending Mower Time in My Yard
Besides serving as my family's chief cook and soap opera watcher these days, I also maintain command and control of our yard.
This is an important task, because the homes in our neighborhood all have great looking front lawns. Most people employ lawn services that keep their turf well-marinated in fertilizer, herbicide and pesticide. (The grass can grow very dependent on this stuff; rumor has it that one neighborhood lawn just got back from the Betty Ford Clinic.)
Since hardly any actual people ever tread on these front yards, it appears all those applications of grow-tox mainly assure that the neighborhood dogs will have soft, plushy surfaces on which to deposit their, well, you know what.
Lately, there's a growing disagreement in my house about whether my desire for grand-looking grounds is as strong as that of our neighbors. I think of myself as quite committed. My wife and kids, on the other hand, think I should BE committed.
The root of this dispute lies in my choice of lawn mower, the tool I most rely on for grooming a lush greensward that my kids and their pals can trample into a soft, plushy pulp while playing wiffle ball, soccer and football
I mow my lawn with a reel mower. That is, the kind without any motor or engine. Its sole energy sources are my massively sculpted arms and legs. Well, except for those rare instances when my massively sculpted limbs are momentarily fatigued, and the mower gets stuck. Then, I fuel it with brief torrents of vile words.
"Why in the (vile word) are you cutting your grass in this primitive fashion?," you may be wondering aloud to yourself. My family and my neighbors have often wondered the same thing aloud to my self.
I've offered a variety of different rationales, but in the end, the reason people seem to respect the most is the one my wife most fervently believes: "Because he's an idiot."
But there are many additional considerations as well. For example, I'm pocketing plenty of cold hard cash that others spend on gas for their mowers. Even after factoring in all my Tylenol and chiropractic costs, I've calculated that by the end of the mowing season I'll have an extra $2.93!
I also hope that by using this old-fashioned machine, I'm in some small way doing a good deed for the environment. True, I foul the atmosphere with occasional emissions of vile words, but I'm not burning any fossil fuels (ignore what my kids say about me being a fossil).
Speaking of my kids, I certainly hope that, through my example, they'll be inspired to dream of greener futures. And it's working! Just the other day, No. 3 son (age 11) said, "If you ever make me mow with that thing, I'm charging you $55 an hour!"
It's been fun explaining my archaic grass-cutting apparatus to all the neighborhood youngsters. Several youths have uttered the exact same response when I explain that it's a reel mower: "Dude, that is so NOT a real mower!" One little girl from a couple doors down still hasn't quite grasped the concept; she went home and told her parents that "Mr. Stuart is vacuuming his grass!"
Actually, there are many times when I think a vacuum would work just as well. Sometimes it's dang difficult to push a reel mower through the grass and actually cut anything. For example, there are isolated portions of my lawn where the grass grows thick and full, thanks to the neighborhood dogs depositing their, well, you know what. After I've spent hours hacking through those areas with my throwback mower, I'm reeling with so much fatigue, sweat and, um, manly fragrances that I make your typical Amishman look like a flaming metrosexual.
One neighbor suggested to me that the only way the task would get any easier would be to add more horsepower. Later, it occurred to me -- he might have been dissing my massively sculpted arms and legs.
The other day, after a sweltering three hours spent cutting one-third of the front yard, I mentioned this horsepower wisecrack to my wife. She said soothingly that I shouldn't brood about it, and that she thinks I already handle the reel mower like a horse. A horse's (vile word), that is.
# # #
TakefiveT5@yahoo.com
This is an important task, because the homes in our neighborhood all have great looking front lawns. Most people employ lawn services that keep their turf well-marinated in fertilizer, herbicide and pesticide. (The grass can grow very dependent on this stuff; rumor has it that one neighborhood lawn just got back from the Betty Ford Clinic.)
Since hardly any actual people ever tread on these front yards, it appears all those applications of grow-tox mainly assure that the neighborhood dogs will have soft, plushy surfaces on which to deposit their, well, you know what.
Lately, there's a growing disagreement in my house about whether my desire for grand-looking grounds is as strong as that of our neighbors. I think of myself as quite committed. My wife and kids, on the other hand, think I should BE committed.
The root of this dispute lies in my choice of lawn mower, the tool I most rely on for grooming a lush greensward that my kids and their pals can trample into a soft, plushy pulp while playing wiffle ball, soccer and football
I mow my lawn with a reel mower. That is, the kind without any motor or engine. Its sole energy sources are my massively sculpted arms and legs. Well, except for those rare instances when my massively sculpted limbs are momentarily fatigued, and the mower gets stuck. Then, I fuel it with brief torrents of vile words.
"Why in the (vile word) are you cutting your grass in this primitive fashion?," you may be wondering aloud to yourself. My family and my neighbors have often wondered the same thing aloud to my self.
I've offered a variety of different rationales, but in the end, the reason people seem to respect the most is the one my wife most fervently believes: "Because he's an idiot."
But there are many additional considerations as well. For example, I'm pocketing plenty of cold hard cash that others spend on gas for their mowers. Even after factoring in all my Tylenol and chiropractic costs, I've calculated that by the end of the mowing season I'll have an extra $2.93!
I also hope that by using this old-fashioned machine, I'm in some small way doing a good deed for the environment. True, I foul the atmosphere with occasional emissions of vile words, but I'm not burning any fossil fuels (ignore what my kids say about me being a fossil).
Speaking of my kids, I certainly hope that, through my example, they'll be inspired to dream of greener futures. And it's working! Just the other day, No. 3 son (age 11) said, "If you ever make me mow with that thing, I'm charging you $55 an hour!"
It's been fun explaining my archaic grass-cutting apparatus to all the neighborhood youngsters. Several youths have uttered the exact same response when I explain that it's a reel mower: "Dude, that is so NOT a real mower!" One little girl from a couple doors down still hasn't quite grasped the concept; she went home and told her parents that "Mr. Stuart is vacuuming his grass!"
Actually, there are many times when I think a vacuum would work just as well. Sometimes it's dang difficult to push a reel mower through the grass and actually cut anything. For example, there are isolated portions of my lawn where the grass grows thick and full, thanks to the neighborhood dogs depositing their, well, you know what. After I've spent hours hacking through those areas with my throwback mower, I'm reeling with so much fatigue, sweat and, um, manly fragrances that I make your typical Amishman look like a flaming metrosexual.
One neighbor suggested to me that the only way the task would get any easier would be to add more horsepower. Later, it occurred to me -- he might have been dissing my massively sculpted arms and legs.
The other day, after a sweltering three hours spent cutting one-third of the front yard, I mentioned this horsepower wisecrack to my wife. She said soothingly that I shouldn't brood about it, and that she thinks I already handle the reel mower like a horse. A horse's (vile word), that is.
# # #
TakefiveT5@yahoo.com
posted by Don Stuart at 9:54 AM
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