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My birthday gift
For my birthday last weekend (Svenskarnas Dag, if you must know) my family got me a new lawn mower. Did I need another lawn mower? No. But this isn't just any lawnmower, it's manual reel mower. It's a Scotts Classic reel mower. So I can (mostly) abandon use of my gas powered mower and get a bit more exercise.
Even better than that, my boys (aged 9 and 5) both want to mow the lawn now, and since there's no fast-moving blade and gas engine involved, they're allowed to do so. I just supervise and do the hard parts. Well, actually, I end up doing most of the mowing, since the boys get tired and their enthusiasm wanes. But we mow the lawn together, and that's nice. I suggested to them that we get three mowers so we could get the lawn done in a third of the time, but really, until one of them can mow half the lawn, it doesn't make much sense. Of course, mowing the lawn doesn't take that long, so having multiple mowers going at the same time doesn't make any sense.
Besides not using gas and giving me and the boys a better workout, I like that this mower is a whole lot quieter than a gas mower. The big disadvantage, though, is that reel mowers aren't very effective if you've gotten lazy and let your grass get really high, or you have some tall weeds. That's probably a reason to keep a gas mower around. Or use a weed whacker on those tall weeds.
Anyway, it was a nice gift and another way to help keep me fit and reduce our carbon footprint.
Posted at 01:34PM Jul 02, 2007 by Dave Marquardt in Life |
