I have been saying for a couple years that I am going to take my old push mower and have a new engine put on it, so I can start pushmowing my yard again, and, in pure procrastinator fashion, have put it off…until recently. My yard consists of a little less than an acre and, for the first ten to twelve years we were in the house, I used that old push mower to keep the grass cut. When the engine was no longer serviceable I bought a nice little riding mower, which I have been using since.
My rationale for having a new engine put on the push mower was that I needed to start pushing the yard again for health reasons mainly. It would give me a reason to get outside and move, getting in a good walk in the process. Also to get hard to reach places, thus cutting down on using the weed eater. Well, about three weeks ago something broke in the engine of the riding mower with only a little bit of the yard left to mow. I told myself that, if I’m ever going to get a new engine for the push mower, now was a good time to do it. I also told myself that if I don’t start pushing the yard again now, I never will do it again. So, I threw my old push mower in the back of the truck and took it to the outdoor power supply store.
Yesterday, for the first time in about eighteen years, I push mowed ‘God’s Little (close to an) Acre’, and learned a few things:
1. It takes longer to do it with the push mower than it does with the riding mower.
2. Tracking my steps and distance showed that I almost double my mileage during two hours of mowing the yard, than I do during a twelve hour work shift.
3. It was a whole lot easier to do it eighteen years ago, when I was in my thirties, than it is now in my fities! In my defense, though, I had been awake about twenty-one hours and the temperature was already in the upper eighties before 9:00am.
It’s not even summer yet, and the temps are already pushing 90s?! I think I’m going to go and find a nice big, zero-turn, 78 inch cutting radius, heavy duty riding mower, and hire the guy who owns it to bring it to the house and cut my grass this summer!
I’m just kidding. I’ll push on (pun intended), and stick with it for a while anyway. Who knows. It may provide material for some future blogs.
Jim G Black Writes 