The Joy of Mowing

Yesterday evening I had the blissful pleasure of mowing all of the lawns where I live. There are three of them (well, four actually). There are the house lawns (front-small and side-big), the front field (very big) and the back (wilderness setting). Each has it's own characteristics.

I started with the well-groomed house lawns. We are fighting moles, so I began by treating each active run I could locate. (Note: I hate moles...they are so destructive to lawns.) Then I mowed the side and front house lawns with a medium setting and 1/2 bagged and 1/2 mulched.

Next I moved to the front lawn. We just planted it last fall, so we watered it this year to give it a good start. Previously it was just field grass. This lawn takes a setting one higher on the lawn mower, also doing 1/2 bagging and 1/2 mulching.

Finally I moved to the back lawn. Well, actually, calling it a lawn is a big of an exaggeration. It is a closely cropped field, all brown, with only weeds really doing any growing. Almost all of what I cut was the tops of brown dandelions. (How DO they survive?) I used a very short setting and mulched 90% of the clippings.

The whole process took me three hours of very active work. Our lawn mower is self-propelled, and I used the high speed setting whenever possible (front and back). The grass in the house lawns is so thick that I could only use the medium speed setting and still get a nice clean look.

We are getting ready for a party on Thursday. All the staff and volunteers (along with their families) have been invited over for our annual summer picnic. The current estimate is just shy of 60 people. It will be lots of fun!

And you now may ask why all that hot work was such a joy. Well I think mowing is fun! Not only that, but it is quality thinking time. There is very little thinking needed to mow a lawn, but you accomplish much. You get to see what you are doing (immediate results). And the job leaves your brain free to mull over more weighty matters. I always treasure time spent mowing the lawn.

I will also mention that the lady I live with also enjoys mowing the lawn (so I'm not totally strange). But she has some sort of allergy thing going on (maybe caused by dust) and so had to let me do it this time. I didn't mind.