Today I mowed a lawn for the first time in, oh, 20 years or so. I’m pretty sure I stopped mowing my Mom’s lawn when I went off to graduate school, since I had less and less time to go back and visit from that point forward.
I borrowed an electric corded mower from my friend Chad, who has a gardener who does his and Camille’s yard. Since it had been sitting around for a while unused, I cleaned it up this afternoon, bought a 100-foot cord, and tonight took it out for a spin (it having been maybe 2-1/2 weeks since the lawn was last mowed, around the time we closed escrow).
The two big drawbacks:
- The cord is by far the biggest pain in the ass in the process, having to swoop it around to make sure I didn’t mow over it. Fortunately, I didn’t, and I didn’t get tangled up in it either.
- The bag is small, maybe 1/3 to 1/2 the size of the bags on the mowers my Dad owned growing up. So I had to stop to empty it often.
So I bet I’ll end up buying a new mower with a larger bag. While I grew up using gas-powered mowers, I’m not too enthused about having to buy and store gas for it. So more likely I’ll get an electric battery-powered mower.
I might also need a weed whacker or other edging tool, as part of the yard is edged with large rocks. Fun fun.
All-in-all it took about an hour, but I think with no cord and a larger bag it would be faster and even pretty easy.
Still, how long do you think it’ll be before we break down and just hire a gardener?