I got a "new" piece of exercise equipment last week. Remember my query about reel lawn mowers [0]? Well, it hasn't rained much since then and when the grass finally got tall enough to need mowing, I got a call from someone alerting me to a second-hand reel mower for sale.
We drove 10 miles to look at it, and I probably over-paid, but saving the earth's landfills sometimes means we buy old junk from retired folks, right? ;)
Just kidding. The guy assurred us that there was enough scrap metal in the mower that we couldn't lose money. And I don't think he was exaggerating, because "light" and "easy to push" aren't what come to mind when I mow with this thing.
Especially since our lawn was/is 6 inches tall and full of little sticks. Oh, and the guy said he had never needed to sharpen the blade. You all warned me about tall grass and sticks, but where there's a will there's a way.
During my first mowing attempt, Yehoshua said to me "Mommy! You can take a picture of this for your website." and I laughed! After forty-five minutes spent pushing through 6-inch tall-and-very-thick grassthe last thing I planned to do was blog about it!!
It's too dark in this picture to tell, but tonight I went back over some of what I had initially mowed and it went pretty well! Over short grass, this mower pushes about as hard as our old push mower did through really tall grass, so I think I can handle pushing it.
The "woooosssshhhhh!" of the grass being cut is a really lovely sound, too.
Every time I came past Ruth, she did this:
And I could actually hear her squeal as I mowed!
I'll post an update next summer when I'm having to mow all the time. :)