inluminent

Todd Dominey writes about his new ‘old school’ mower in this post. I’m linking to that post, because an old neighbor of mine bought a reel mower for his lawn back when I lived in Fort Worth. When I asked him what was wrong with him when I saw him mowing with it at 7am one Sunday morning in the middle of July, he laughed at me.

I cocked my head waiting for an answer, and he listed his reasons:

1. It’s friendly to the environment

2. It actually cuts much closer and cleaner than a power mower can after you get it set right

3. It’s quieter than a power mower, thus he could mow at 6am, or 10pm if he wanted without disturbing the neighbors or waking his young children

4. It’s hotter than shit outside at noon, so I’d rather mow at 6am or 9pm

I laughed pretty hartily at his 4th reason, but couldn’t argue with him. He was right, but I suspect the fact that he’d just moved to Fort Worth, TX from Colorado made the heat at noon more unbearable than it felt to me. I attempted to mow my yard once or twice with his mower, but I had much thicker grass than he, and that made it tough for me to use the reel mower… and thus, I resorted to my good ol’ power mower (which was a hand-me down from the neighbor next door that had just upgraded to the Super-Deluxe Honda XL-23958 model with a turbo-charger built in). (who knew Honda made lawn mowers?)

Keep mowing with the reel mower Todd, I’m impressed.