BennyEast.Com/Blog The official blog of Kenny West

Not The Last Mow (Sort Of)

Oh, so today was Thanksgiving... Went to a family friend's place of my mom over in NJ.  They have a house on a lake, near Hammonton, near the forests and blueberry farms.  It's a nice place... It was a nice time.  The lake was very scenic.  We had food, and hung out and conversed about things, such is why NYC pizza is so good (apparently it's the water).

Anyway, so, yeah... Of course I was legit the only single person there, but that's how things always go for me.

Well, at any rate, so during dinner we were all talking about various things (besides NYC pizza) and one of the things we discussed was lawn care... At least I could chat about that... SO, a lot of us are now homeowners... and we were talking about lawn mowers... And I was telling my leaf clearing experience.

Apparently I'm the last person to figure this out, but hey, better to have figured it out eventually than not at all!

Well, so, basically, I explained how I am doing leaf clean up this year.  Now, in previous years, I've gotten out there with a rake and bagged them in these paper bags... OR, I've just let them blow into the neighbors yards.

But, I don't want to be that neighbor... Although, to be fair, the trees that are making the leaves aren't even on my property.  But they fall off the trees and land on my property and get blown over...

So, it's fine.

Let me back up real quick.  Before I bought all this new fancy pants yard machinery, I was using the little manual mower... One of the downsides to a human powered manual mower is that it won't mulch.

When I bought my new mower, I set it to mulch right away.  The grass always comes up looking better in my opinion when you mulch it.

Everyone always has all these opinions about mowing.  I don't think any one of the options fits all the time.  Like most mowers, my mower has the 3 in 1 feature.  So, I have mulch, for regular mowing.  Sideshoot is when the grass gets too overgrown for the mulching, like, if it's rained a TON and the grass grew really fast... For example in the spring.  Although, it probably could still be mulched with this mower.  The thing about this mower is that it's electric, you know, like the electric slide.

It's electric!

And now you're singing the electric slide song.

Because of that, I don't have to worry about running out of gas.  I remember when I was a teen and would mow the lawn, if the lawn was super thick, the gas would run out sooner because the mower would have to work harder.

Or maybe that's just how I remember it... But with this thing, and having 5 batteries now to cycle through, I can pretty much mow indefinitely, even if the strain on the mower is higher.  I just keep 4 batteries on the chargers and pull the next one in line when this battery runs out of juice.

Okay, so, the final option is bagging... In my opinion the bagging is mostly used for yard cleanup.

At least, that's what I recently figured out.

Here's what happens when you bag... It basically turns the mower into an outdoor vacuum cleaner.

So, like, not just leaves, but other debris on the lawn can be sucked up by the mower.  So, I was saying at dinner, how yesterday I cleaned up debris around the yard using my leaf blower and mower.

What I did was, I put the bag on the back, set the mower to the highest setting, then used the leaf blower to round up leaves and sticks and twigs and such.  I used the blower to push them into the center of the yard in a line.  Then I used the mower to go alone the line and suck it all up into the mower bag.  I detached the mower bag and emptied the contents of the bag into a brown yard cleanup bag that I purchased at the store.

It's SOOOO much faster than raking.  And, when you mow over top of it, it just sucks it right into the mower and into the bag.

It's amazing.

So, while it wasn't technically a mow, it was kind of sort of like mowing.  So, I guess the mow I did last weekend wasn't the last.  And since the leaves are still falling, and I still have a few more spots to clean up, I'll probably still be mowing right up until it snows.  And then, I'll just go right to snowblowing...

And then when that stops, there's usually about a month or so before the grass kind of starts to grow again.

It's weird though because last spring I was just like, dreading the warm temps and the grass to start growing.

Now I'm just like... TAKE THAT GRASS!  I actually enjoy mowing with this thing.  It's just so cool I guess.

I think eventually the novelty will wear off... But maybe not!

It's different too because I never much liked using gas lawn equipment.  I hated mowing with a gas mower.  It's loud and smelly.  That's why I was trying to use the manual push mower.  But that started to hurt my back.  Which is pretty much the reason why I gave up on that and finally got this electric stuff.

I'm glad I did finally make this purchase.  It's totally worth the money.

But, yeah, I actually really enjoy using the electric yard equipment.  It just works so well, and it's fun to use.  It starts right up, and you just pop the battery in.  You don't have to run to the gas station to get more gas when you run out.  I would always spill the gas too when putting it in the mower and then it would smell terrible.

I think the best part of it though, is that, it feels like I'm more on level with my peers, or society in general. There was one point over the summer where I almost felt like I was just failing at life in general because I was mowing grass all the time and could barely keep up with it.

Psychologically it felt like... Life was overwhelming me.  I was sore and my back hurt and areas I had JUST mowed were already starting to grow after a day or two...

And my to-do list just kept getting longer and longer.

Once I bought this equipment, I felt like... back in charge.  Maybe that's why I like it so much.

It makes me feel good.  And who doesn't like things that make you feel good.  I hate the feeling of being overwhelmed.

With the right tool, life becomes a breeze I guess.  I love figuring stuff out.  I love being able to find better ways to do things.

I mean, okay yes, I kind of already knew all this, it's basic homeownership 101... My thing was, I just hate gas equipment... So, finding this cordless electric alternative...

Basically, I could run with the big dogs again... And be on par with my peers... But I could do it in my own way.  Best of both worlds.

It's quirky I suppose, but I just have my own little way that I like doing things.

Well, so now that the mowing and yard cleanup thing has been sorted out, I can start working on other items on my to-do list instead of spending tons of time mowing, or leaf raking.

Oh, annnnnnd, my yard is looking pretty darn good too if you ask me!

So there you have it.  I can hold my own when it comes to homeowner yard work talk at the Thanksgiving dinner table.