Pushing it.

[captainsblog]

Our gas-powered lawnmower died of a gas-tank encounter with some odd form of shrapnel. Must've been six summers ago, at least. It was replaced by a people-powered reel mower known as WALL-E.



He lasted three summers, until stress on his joints (not to mention mine) broke the handles apart irreparably. We then ordered his 2011 replacement, named Eve of course:



Now it's another three summers later. Eve is still fully functional, and  remains our only guard against the onslaught of weedery, although she's been Zombified with a set of additional handle parts from the factory and at least a piece or two of the original WALL-E worked in.

This year, though, it's just been a bit much.  After a very rainy spring, the backyard grass has become fuller of nasty weeds than in previous ones, and a full cut of the back forty takes multiple passes over at least a week. Every twenty feet or so of pushing, the bottom and the edges of the axle get clogged with cuttings and need to be cleared. My back, knees and ankles are getting too old for this

And so it has been decided: we're off to the Wide World of Hardware this weekend to find a powered supplement, if not replacement, for this beloved member of the family. We're looking at electrics, and probably cordlesses. I've wondered if we could just attach a plow on the front of the Smart Car, but it would, unfortunately, require propelling him over the roof in both directions, since he won't fit through the  door or fence into the back yard.

But not by much.

Comments

[fiddlingfrog.livejournal.com]

When I worked at a hardware store the assistant manager put a sign on the manual mowers labeling them as Lawn Exerciser. I can't quote numbers, but I'm sure that after he did that we started selling more of them.