Thursday, May 7, 2009

Increasing my carbon footprint--ttttthhhhbbbbppp!!

Ok, I tried. We had an old lawnmower that died. My friend who can fix tractors couldn't even figure out what was wrong with it. So I drydocked it in our garage (with a nearly full tank of gas of course) and caved in and got a reel lawnmower.

No, that's not a spelling error.

Since gas prices were going CRAZY, my sweet B thought we should look into a push mower. Hey. they look pretty impressive in the videos. So, since my young buck, N is doing the yard (with me breaking trimmers right and left--but that's another post) he liked the workout and used it all last summer.

The problem is if you don't spend inordinate amounts of time (and $$) on your lawn so it's like a shag carpet (and I don't), you get tall weeds, clover, and crabgrass, which, hey, I don't care. The reel mower however just bends the tall stuff and leaves it alone so you finish with the job and you have these lone tall grass shoots sticking up--especially if you have a hill, tree roots and other "imperfections" in your yard.

So you now have four options: 1) do the whole thing again 2) ignore it 3) follow up on the long stuff with the weedwacker/trimmer--which was what we did or 4) spend even MORE $$ and get another gas powered one.

Since, after much hassle, the State of NC finally believed we had six kids living in our house, we got our state tax refund (after almost two months of waiting). One of the first things I did (aside from replenishing our poor savings account) was to run out to WalMart and BUY A NEW MOWER!! (yes, I know, I still don't like WalMart but I've been checking prices and models since we bought the "earth biscuit mower" so I knew what I wanted and how much I was willing to pay).

We're still keeping the reel one. Maybe next year I'll start S on it.

Now I just need to figure out the easiest way to drain the gas out of the old one.

2 comments:

Nathaniel G. said...

Yeah the push mower gave me a good workout. =D

I mean it was okay during the spring.
But when those weeds started popping up and the weather goes up into the 90's, well, let's just say that's when I'm about ready to take a sledgehammer and SMASH the push mower to oblivion rather than use it. =/

So yeah I'm glad we have a gas powered mower now. =D

Christelle said...

Lol!!!! You are silly dad!!!!

You go NatGeo!!!!!!!