We had no intention of buying a riding lawnmower for our property when we made our weekly trip to work on the house. We had intended that the relatively large purchase (large to us anyway) be postponed for a year or two, when we had recovered from the refurbishment expenditures we had been making and that we knew would continue for a while.
Our stop-gap plan had included a deal with the neighboring farmer: a less than market rental rate for our tillable acreage in exchange for a snow-plowed driveway and a periodic mowing.
Because we had noticed on our prior weekend’s trip that the farmer had been unable to maneuver his brush hog close to our home due to the large number of scattered trees, bushes, planting beds, etc.; and, the lawn was getting more and more shaggy as the weeks went by, we brought our push/gas lawnmower with us from home. Additionally, I purchased a manual reel lawn mower online that was delivered unassembled in a box just in time for transport. The reel mower in particular was in-line with my goals of getting us as off of as much fossil fuels as possible one step at a time.
Arriving at the property that Friday evening proved to be a rude awakening. With all the recent rain, the grass had grown to such a state (probably a good 20 inches in height) that we had to jump right in and begin our lawnmowing process with our respective push mowers pronto. I found that the manual reel mower proved itself immediately to be unable to deal with such overgrowth. An hour and a half later with many starts and stops, Ed’s push/gas mower had trimmed such a small patch of grass that we knew we would have to make a purchase the next day.
Luckily for us, we had brought our newly purchased trailer that weekend. We went to town Saturday afternoon and made a pretty snappy decision to purchase a Cub-Cadet riding lawn mower from the only retail establishment that was both open after 2pm and that carried riding lawnmowers (we purchased a Cub-Cadet XT1 LT 46 (46" deck) 22HP Enduro Series Riding Mower from Tractor Supply Co). The helpful attendant demonstrated how to start the mower (it started) and then proceeded to load it onto our trailer.
Arriving back at the property and patting ourselves on the back for our decisiveness around our large but necessary purchase (and telling ourselves over and over that it had to be done), we were ready to mow; Ed was to take the first spin. But… once home, the mower, of course, would not start. We read and re-read the owner’s manual, made several phone calls to the store, searched the internet, made trips to town for a new battery, new spark plugs, etc. Still it was all a “no-go”. Sadly, we decided that first thing Sunday morning, we would return the mower at a minimum, and exchange it if we could.
The store’s manager kindly took our return and said that we had been given the “problematic mower”. Upon hearing that, we decided to try our luck at an exchange (especially since most of the online reviews and consumer reports were very positive on the model that we purchased). Happily, the new mower started right up that Sunday morning and an hour later, our lawn was mowed.
I have since taken over lawn mowing responsibilities and taken on the challenge of devising and refining mowing routes that minimize the number of passes given all of the work-around obstacles while keeping clippings off of our gravel driveway and the dirt road. Now I have to find a use for that reel mower.
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