Emptying the ocean with a bucket
Apr. 24th, 2006 09:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinanjuOkay, it wasn't quite that bad. In fact, it was nowhere near that bad. Trying to empty the ocean with a bucket is literally futile. It ain't never gonna happen.
Cutting the lawn with a weed whacker, on the other hand, is possible. Just time-consuming, tedious, and tiring. So why would I do such a thing? Glad you asked!
Last summer, my lovely and talented wife and I decided to dispense with the services of the guy who cut our grass on a weekly basis. We'd been paying for that service for years, though with a different guy almost every years. Yard cutting guys in our price range are notoriously flighty, prone to simply disappearing never to be seen again after one summer's work.
But last year we decided we'd rather spend that money on other things. Plus, we bought a reel mower--the push mower that doesn't use an engine. It depends on the user--that would be me--to operate it. We figured it was cheaper and easier than buying an electric or gasoline mower (no fuel costs, no engine maintenance). And as an extra added bonus, it would provide me with some regular exercise in addition to my running.
The problem is that reel mowers don't work on tall grass. You have to keep the grass cut short for best effect. Which means cutting the lawn two or maybe three times a week when the grass is growing fast. That wasn't a problem last summer. Our yard isn't all that big, so it doesn't take more than about half an hour to do it all. Nor over the winter, when it doesn't grow at all or only grows slowly.
But in the spring when it was too wet to cut for some time and then I was sick with the flu for a couple of weeks, the grass got completely out of control. There was no way I'd be able to get it under control with the reel mower; the grass would just bend flat when I ran the mower over it, and the mower wouldn't cut it. And we don't have any other lawnmower.
We do, however, have an electric weed whacker and a very, very long extension cord. So I cut the front yard and a little of the side yard today--as much as I could manage before I started up with the coughing (still not entirely over this damn bug). I'll do the side yard and/or the backyard tomorrow. Then I can start keeping it shorn with the reel mower again.
Cutting the lawn with a weed whacker, on the other hand, is possible. Just time-consuming, tedious, and tiring. So why would I do such a thing? Glad you asked!
Last summer, my lovely and talented wife and I decided to dispense with the services of the guy who cut our grass on a weekly basis. We'd been paying for that service for years, though with a different guy almost every years. Yard cutting guys in our price range are notoriously flighty, prone to simply disappearing never to be seen again after one summer's work.
But last year we decided we'd rather spend that money on other things. Plus, we bought a reel mower--the push mower that doesn't use an engine. It depends on the user--that would be me--to operate it. We figured it was cheaper and easier than buying an electric or gasoline mower (no fuel costs, no engine maintenance). And as an extra added bonus, it would provide me with some regular exercise in addition to my running.
The problem is that reel mowers don't work on tall grass. You have to keep the grass cut short for best effect. Which means cutting the lawn two or maybe three times a week when the grass is growing fast. That wasn't a problem last summer. Our yard isn't all that big, so it doesn't take more than about half an hour to do it all. Nor over the winter, when it doesn't grow at all or only grows slowly.
But in the spring when it was too wet to cut for some time and then I was sick with the flu for a couple of weeks, the grass got completely out of control. There was no way I'd be able to get it under control with the reel mower; the grass would just bend flat when I ran the mower over it, and the mower wouldn't cut it. And we don't have any other lawnmower.
We do, however, have an electric weed whacker and a very, very long extension cord. So I cut the front yard and a little of the side yard today--as much as I could manage before I started up with the coughing (still not entirely over this damn bug). I'll do the side yard and/or the backyard tomorrow. Then I can start keeping it shorn with the reel mower again.
