Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Lawnmowing for Women and Sissies

If you're a woman who has never had the experience of mowing a lawn, this article is for you.
If you're a first-time home owner, or are simply just starting to mow a lawn for the very first time, this article is for you.

If you have ever run over an extension cord while mowing, this article is for you.

If you have ever pulled on a cord to start a gas mower more than 3 times in succession, this article is for you. It's especially for you if you've ever yanked so much on the starter cord that you thought your teeth would fall out.

If you've ever popped a hernia while using a manual mower, this article is for you.

Why There is No Perfect Mower

There are advantages and disadvantages to every type of mower. There is no one mower that will suit every user or every type of lawn. And make no mistake, the lawn, and the user, figure prominently in the functioning of your mower!

The Flat Lawn: A Manual Mower for Type A
First of all, I've never actually met one. A lawn that is perfectly flat, that is. But say you bought a house with a postage-stamp sized lawn that is actually flat and free of holes. Say also that you are a Type-A, go-getter personality, who enjoys physical labour and wants to cut the grass three times a week. Get yourself a manual mower, and enjoy! Clean it after each use, oil it, and get the blades sharpened, and you'll enjoy a lifetime of crowing it over your gas-guzzling, cord-cutting, deafened neighbours. You can cut the lawn  in the middle of the night if you want - this kind of mower makes only gentle whispers.

But beware - if you skip a mowing and let it go more than three days, expect a hard time. This puppy has no gears - it's push-push-push every agonizing step of the way. If you go away for a week and come home and have to cut more than 1/4 inch off your grass, you may as well save yourself time and go wait in the emergency room, because you'll have a heart attack or bust a gasket doing it!

If there is the slightest chance that you will miss out on mowing every third day from April to November, get a different mower.

Normal Lawns
Most lawns are not flat. They've got gopher holes, swingsets, flower beds and trees that need to be mowed around. They have little hills and valleys that are invisible from the porch or the street, and insignificant until you twist your ankle pushing a mower through them. Now you must decide what kind of personality you are to determine the proper mower for you.

The Jock Who Loves Engines and Is a Lazy Bugger
This character wants a gas mower. To find out if this is you, answer the following questions:

1. Do I enjoy taking engines apart and cleaning them at least four times a season?

Because if you think that once a year will do, you'll end up yanking on that cord a lot more than you bargained for!

2. Am I responsible enough to actually take my used oil to a proper facility for disposal?

Because if you're likely to dump it down the drain, you're a shmuck - get an electric mower! 

Ok, you say, I'll save it up in a container and take it to a facility once in a while. Fine - but be be honest with yourself about just how "once-in-a-while" you really are. Do you really want all this toxic stuff in your home for forty years? It's not like you can sue anyone when you get cancer, if it's your own bloody fault for never disposing of it properly. Have you got toddlers running around who might decide that the coffee can would be great to catch bugs in and who might pour the stuff you've been saving for years down the drain, then put bugs in the tin and lick their fingers? Face it - people do stupid things, especially when dealing with dangerous or toxic substances. It's better to haul the stuff away as you finish with it than to leave it lying around in an unlabelled container, waiting for trouble.

3. Am I actually going to put the mower somewhere out of the rain and snow?

Because if you leave it out to get rained on, sooner or later it ain't gonna start. And if you don't empty and clean the thing properly before winter, you're going to need a major engine rebuild in the spring. And after a few rounds of this kind of mistreatment, you end up buying a new mower every couple of years, which is darned expensive.

If you only like the idea of a gas mower, because you think that electric mowers are for sissies, but you're not actually going to maintain your mower properly, man up and be a sissy and get an electric mower!

The reason people like the idea of gas mowers, by the way, is that they're powerful - they can cut the really long grass with no particular difficulty.

Of course, it's better for your lawn if you cut it regularly - twice a week in the spring, once a week in the summer. You cut off less of the plant each time, you don't have to bag the clippings, they just fall invisibly down and nourish the lawn as they decay.

But if you like to leave your grass till it's waist-high, you'll need a gas mower. Either keep it tuned yourself, pay to have it tuned, or pay someone to cut your grass more often, and preferably use their own mower while they're at it.

The Careful Planner
This kind of person suits an electric mower that has a cord.

The beauty of electric mowers is that they're light, easily maneuverable. Easily turned. Actually a great mower for a woman or un-athletic guys.

The problem is the cord. Most everybody will run over a cord at least once in their lawnmowing career. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Locate your plug in relation to the grass you have to cut. Find out which side of the mower the cord will fall on. Plan your mow. Plan to move away from the plug, with the cord falling on the side you have already mowed.

It's that simple. As you mow back and forth, if you're moving away from the plug, the wire will always be lying on the freshly-cut grass, never in your way on the bit you want to cut.

But you have to spend at least five minutes of your life actually thinking about this, or you'll end up having to flip the cord over the mower, or run over it. Mind you, once you've figured this out, you should be able to remember it for the next time!

If you're a klutz who can never remember which side the cord is on, which side of the car your gas tank is on, or how to vote in a Quebec election, get a cordless. It may cost more initially, but you'll save money on extension cords over the long haul.

Everybody Else
A cordless electric mower can have many advantages over both gas and corded mowers. First, it's easy to start. There's no cord to run over, so you can twist and turn to your heart's content.

It can be a little heavy, but that's easily solved by getting a self-propelled model. Squeeze the little handle, and the thing drives itself. This can be especially handy on those hills I mentioned earlier. And on bigger hills, like the sides of descending driveways for example, should you be unfortunate to own one of those, it's a godsend.

There's a little trick with any self-propelled mower though, because once the wheels have been engaged, they lock into that direction. If you let go of the handle at the same moment as you stop moving forward, those wheels are still locked to go forward only. The trick is to mow a little bit forward - 4 or 5 inches only - after disengaging the drive. That returns the wheels to normal functioning, and you can yank it backwards easily.

The Actual Mow

Preparation
A good mow starts with preparation. The day before, check the fridge. There must be at least one beer, and it's got to be cold. Mowing is work!

Planning
Try to mow in the morning, when it's cool. If you sleep till noon, you have no shade to mow in. It's hot. Really not much fun.

A Word About Rain
Grass can be cut after a rain, it's just not pleasant. A gas mower doesn't care, it'll tear through anything. If your grass is too long and you're bagging it, well, I told you to get someone else to cut it for you!

Simplify
As mentioned previously, very few of us have flat, unobstructed lawns. Most of us are dealing with obstacles. In a perfect world, there would be no grass right up to the side of the house - there would be a foot or two of mulch or gravel around the house, around each garden, around the poles for the swings, around the composter, etc. If that were the case, you wouldn't need a whipper-snipper.

Now, personally, I hate whipper-snippers. I just know that at some point that thing is going to go after me - and I'm just not into lacerations. I'd rather get rid of all the grass along the edges of the house, driveway, gardens, trees, composter, and everything else that obstructs the smooth mowing of the lawn. This takes time, money and effort. So my rule of thumb is, I mow what I can. You want to whipper-snipper it, knock yourself out. To date, in the year Boyfriend and I have lived together, he's mowed the lawn three or four times and whipper-snippered it twice. I've done the rest of the mowing. The tall tufts of grass at the edges of the fences and the foundations bother me, but not enough to get out the whipper-snipper. One day I'll have dug all that stuff out from around the fences and the foundations and there will be stone or mulch there, and I'll mow right to these new edges proudly. Till then, the tufts of tall grass will wave accusingly at Boyfriend, saying "When you gonna whipper-snipper us?" It's his problem, not mine.

Okay, so you have all these obstructions. All of them are arranged in such a fashion as to make lawnmowing more difficult. A series of twisty-turny, uneven passages where you have to turn in tight spaces and go back over areas you're just mowed to get to the next impossible area.

The rule for backing up is, it's okay if it's fewer than eight steps. Longer than that, it'll probably save you effort if you can figure out how to turn around. If your lawn has such an obstacle course on it that there's nowhere to turn and you have to walk backwards more than eight steps, dig up more of it and put down crushed stone. Your knees, back, ankles and wrists will thank you.

Make Rectangles
Go over your problem areas in little back and forth sections to make them into squares or rectangles. Take six or more turns to get around trees, angling the mower a little each time. Every lawn has nooks and crannies that have to be dealt with before you can get into smooth, straight line mowing. The goal is to get these nooks mowed with a minimum of fuss so they end up with straight edges which can be incorporated into straight-line mowing.

Après-Mow

Clean the underside of the mower. (Ick.) If you do this regularly, you can do it with a stick in a few seconds. Leave the stuff to dry and harden, your mower and blades will rust sooner.

Wind up the cord. Plug the battery in. Sit with a well-deserved beer and relax for at least a half hour.

You Missed a Spot
Invariably, someone will point out a spot you missed. Do not get angry. Smile warmly and say calmly, "You're very welcome to do it yourself, Dear."