Tag Archives: power mower

I Have a Sinus Headache

I put that headline to warn anybody who does not like bellyaching posts.  I thought “bellyaching” was a more descriptive word than “whining,” but the pedant in me feels it is the wrong word since, for once, my belly is not aching.  I pause as I ponder the discrepancy to pour myself another cup of coffee, which may solve the whole problem.  Hey, I can hope.

It is mid-afternoon on a Tuesday, and once again I have not done much blog-worthy activity.  I could perhaps have made a Lawn Order Post, as I spent some time wrestling with my deck and back yard.  Not a lot of time.  In my defense, I am old and suffering a mysterious complaint which renders sustained movement painful (I did mention this was to be a bellyaching post) (once again, the pain is not in my belly).

NOT from my Media Library

I suddenly bestirred myself to get up and go out into the back yard and take a couple of pictures.  Here is my rhododendron, just beginning to bloom.  It is now blocked by a new tree I perhaps should have cut down when it was still small.  However, there are other trees in my yard I may want to have taken down, so perhaps I should let this one live.  I do like shade.

A little more color.

I guess I mentioned that my mower is at Collis Tru-Value Hardware being worked on (just to plug a local business).  I thought it behooved me to do the best I could with the non-power mower.  I figured I could at least get the weeds and grass mushed down a little.

By no means a large section of lawn.

This meets my cousin Mary’s criteria of “looks better than it did.”  A little at a time, I will get the whole thing looking better, and when the power mower is back I hope to get it looking  very nice indeed.  Then I will take more pictures and maybe even invite people over.

These are all over the yard.

On the way back to the house, I took a picture of some forget-me-nots.  It didn’t turn out so well, but I will have plenty of opportunity for more pictures.  Before I went inside, the dog next door on their back porch barked at me.  She often does.  If a ball has fallen into our shared driveway, sometimes I throw it for her to chase while I beat a hasty retreat.  I did so this time.  Alas that my throw was not very strong, and she returned before I had gotten far.  A young woman came out of the house while I prepared to throw the ball again.

“I always feel so bad, because she just wants to play,” I said.  “So I throw the ball, then try to escape.”

I heard her call the dog Luna as she brought her back into the house.  Now I know the dog’s name.  It’s always good to be on a first-name basis with the neighbor’s dog.

By the way, the coffee did help the headache.

 

At Least I’m Not Pushing Up Daisies

I was just looking back over past “lawn order” postings since I thought to do one today.  It is that or a Throwback Thursday.  Personally I am leaning towards the Throwback Thursday, because a Lawn Order post (do I really have that as a category? Too lazy to check right now) can only make me look bad.  I have not taken any pictures, which will really make me look bad (cue unkind jokes about how most pictures of me are bad) (you know who you are).

I do not recall if I mentioned it in a blog post (and having already looked over past posts I do not want to check), but last fall my lawn mower pooped out on the last mow of the season.  It would start but not continue running.  I said to heck with it (only I didn’t say “heck”), put it in the garage, mowed with the non-power mower, and basically just forgot about it.  I am irresponsible like that.  Then when spring got here, I kept hearing No Mow May.  Who am I to argue?  Also, I had other things on my mind.

Back when I used to do a good job mowing my lawn.

I throw in a picture from May 2020, just to pep up the post. I got some advice from several sources, then consulted Collis Hardware, who suggested I bring the mower down there and let them fix it.  What a great idea!  I walked my mower on down. Unfortunately, I should have done it much earlier in the season, because it may be a couple of weeks before I hear from them.

In the meantime, it has been raining, and my grass has been growing.  One year, when Steven was still alive but sick, we had let the grass get quite out of hand.  At this time I was incapable of starting the power mower but managed with great effort to get the front lawn done with the non-power mower.  I got a neighbor to start the power mower to do the back.

Now, regular readers may recall that beginning at the end of April, I have this mysterious pain going on in my leg, rendering prolonged standing, walking, or running difficult.  This is one of the things on my mind that made No Mow May seem so attractive.  However, I believe there are village codes to consider, so yesterday and today, I have had at my front lawn with the non-power mower, clippers, and determination.  The results were… well, it looks as if I made an effort.

Please don’t eat the daisies.

This is actually a picture from June a couple years ago.  There will probably be as many daisies soon.  Right now there are copious forget-me-nots, which I will try to get a picture of soon.  Right now I am still resting my leg from my exertions and hope this rather lengthy (for me) blog post has not been too boring and whiny.

Maybe I give it a punchy headline and bill it as a Non-Sequitur Thursday.

 

No Mo’ No Mow!

I guess it is time to start Lawn Order posts again.  Strange that I never made that a category or at least a tag; it is one of my favorite puns, right up there with, “I fought the lawn, and the lawn won” (I know you sang it; I did).  Full disclosure:  I am going to illustrate this with pictures from my Media Library, because it is really not worth taking pictures of what I accomplished.  Did I win out over the lawn, you are perhaps asking?  I am going to say I did.  At least I acquitted myself well in this skirmish, with some help.

The grass was more grown in.

There was a lot more and longer grass in my front and back yards than in this picture, because I had not mowed yet this year.  Eric Gage of WKTV Weather said it was No Mow May.  At first I thought he said, “No Mo’ May” and we were skipping right to June, but he meant we should let things grow for the sake of pollinators.  I suppose this is all very well for people who are able to start their power mowers.  For those of us who use a non-power mower as a back-up, waiting till almost halfway through the month was not a good plan.

Yesterday (Tuesday) I hauled out the power mower and tried to start it to no avail.  I took the non-power job and tried that.  Oh dear.  I am not a young woman, and I never was a very strong woman.  I gave it up.  I tried again today, this time bringing a little more determination to the endeavor.  Again, there was no starting the power mower.  I took a deep breath and went to work with the other one.  Let me tell you, determination will only get you so far.  I almost gave up three or four times but encouraged myself by what I had accomplished so far.  In point of fact, it did not really look that good: more grass was flattened than cut, but sometimes I have to take what I can get.

Then I heard the blessed sound of somebody else’s power mower.  It was a neighbor across the street who had once offered his help in shoveling snow.  I pulled my mower across the street and asked his help.  A couple of tries and success!  I was on my way!  I got the front done!  I got the back done!  I’m afraid I mowed down some flowers, but you’ll have that. I can always plant new ones if the others don’t come back.

Preview of Coming Attractions.

I did not mow down any daisies.  They are not blooming yet in any case.  After shutting the mower off, I came back out front with some clippers to take care of some really ugly things that keep growing there (I’ll take a picture if they grow back).  My neighbor was sweeping cut grass from his sidewalk.  He asked if it had worked.  I called back that I had finished and thanked him fervently.

“Glad to help out!” he said.

I tried to sweep my cuttings too, but by then I was so tired and sweaty, I did not do a very good job.  I came in and took a second shower and dressed in my second cute outfit of the day (or do I flatter myself). I felt utterly incapable of making a blog post, but I said to myself, “Well, just try.”  I think that worked out almost as well as the lawn, but again, perhaps I flatter myself.

 

Lots of Questions in This One

So there I was, a closed garage door, a sick husband,  and an overgrown lawn.   Did I mention my husband was ailing?  Do I need to mention that this is the second part of Thursday’s post?  Do I need to apologize that I am making it early Saturday morning instead of on Friday? Have I asked enough questions for one paragraph?

Where was I?  (Oops,  another question.)  Ah yes, in front of the garage door.   That’s right,  I decided to have a go at it all by myself.  And what do you know, I succeeded.  Oh, I guess you already knew that, since I talked about getting lawn work done.

So I started with the manual push mower and the front lawn.  For one reason, the front lawn is the one everybody sees.  Oh, don’t tell me not to care what other people think!  It is more pleasant for everyone to see a well-kept lawn instead of a weed jungle,  and I am all about making life just a little bit better in any way I can.

I found that by going over the same little patch six to ten times, I could make a difference.   Phew!  Am I ever glad our front lawn is tiny!  Additionally,  I could skip the patches where the daisies, lilies of the valley (Lilies of the Mohawk Valley?) (just had to throw that in), and — new this year — forget me nots had taken over.

Still, it took me over 40 minutes (I kept looking at my watch, because I promised myself I wouldn’t spend more than an hour on it; it was a holiday, after all). I was sweaty and tired!  I opened a beer, which I felt was the proper beverage for the situation,  and sat down on the back deck.

This gave me a nice view of our overgrown back lawn.  Damn.  I knew my work was not done.  There was no way I could duplicate my efforts out front on our backyard.   It is a normal-sized lawn for our house and neighborhood,  but in terms of labouring behind a manual mower over grass that length,  it seemed vast.  I hauled out the power mower, checked the oil, and added gas.

Then I proved to myself once again that I cannot start that motor by myself.  I just can’t pull that cord with enough force.  What to do?  Finally I knocked on our neighbors’ door.  We don’t really know them, but say hello when we see each other.  They are a nice young couple, with two kids and a dog (I would like to pet the dog, of course, but he does not seem interested in me).

The nice young man came out and started my mower with one pull.  Woo-hoo! This was much better!   Some places — actually many places — still required more than one pass.  Also, it took some effort from my middle-aged body of meager muscles to push the mower over our uneven ground.  But I did it!  I felt like much woman, as my sister Vicki would say.

OK, I set out three days ago to write about Thursday’s efforts.  I am now two posts in, and I am still on Monday.  On the brighter side,  it has been many, many words since I have whined about not being able to write a blog post. I think that calls for a “Yay, me!”

In the meantime,  I am over 550 words.  I generally don’t go in for long blog posts, so I will end this one here.  Will I ever tell about Thursday’s lawn efforts?   Or will I go back to whining about my inability to blog?  Will I post later today or remain two posts behind?  A little suspense adds interest to my Saturday.

 

You’d Be Tired Too!

In case anybody was wondering, I have not been running since last Tuesday.  Excuses are tiresome, so I offer none.  I finally ran again today.  Sort of.

I had planned to run, but as the day wore on, my bunions kept telling me it was going to rain.  My bunions are usually a day ahead of events, so I suspect it will rain tomorrow.  Why is that a problem?  You see, Steven (my husband) plans to mow the lawn tomorrow.  It totally needs it.  He can’t do it tonight; he works too late.  I really, really wanted the front lawn mowed.  It was beginning to look like we were some skanky rental property (please note: I am NOT saying that ALL rental properties are skanky; some are delightfully maintained.  I’m saying our front lawn was starting to look like one of the skanky ones).

To run or to mow?  I’ve done both at least once.  I was in much better shape at the time, running faithfully.  I ran then thought, “Why waste the sweat?”  I got Steven to start the power mower for me and I mowed that damn lawn.

Ah yes, that is a point I should mention.  I am unable to start the power mower.  For me to mow without Steve, I would have to use the non-power mower (I can’t call it a push mower, because we push the power mower), which I purchased for just such a situation.

This is getting to be a long story, and not very interesting.  In my defense, I did mow AND run.  Sadly, I only mowed the front lawn and I only ran for 16 minutes.  In my defense, non-power mowers take a lot of effort.  I mowed first so I did not have much oomph left for running.  Now I am just about as tired as I usually am when I make a Tired Tuesday post.

So I’m afraid this is it for today.  It’s too bad, because I thought of some pretty amusing stuff while I was mowing and running.  If I can remember them, maybe I’ll include them in tomorrow’s blog post.  As always, I hope you’ll stay tuned.