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Mowing, Mowing, Mowing

June 4th, 2014

Last night we picked up a new vintage Cub Cadet garden tractor.  We’ve been looking around for one, mostly so I can mow the lawn way faster than in the seven hours it currently takes me with our little 20 inch push mower.  I love to mow and I love to push mow, the exercise is great and it’s a deeply satisfying job.
push mower
This little mower is a champ, we purchased it for $100 about fourteen years ago and it’s still going strong. Mr Chiots had to do a few things to it this spring to get it running, but it’s been mowing and mowing and mowing this season.
Mowing 2
Mowing 1
Lucky for us we got it from our neighbor who bought it new way back in 1988 (at least I think that’s the year).
mowing (2)
I am the chief mowing officer around here, in fact Mr Chiots barely mows. Mowing is one of those chores I thoroughly enjoy, even at seven hours a week. It will be nice to get it finished in at least half the time though, that will leave more time for other garden chores, chiefly adding new ornamental flower beds.

Who does the mowing in your family and what kind of machine do you use?

18 Comments to “Mowing, Mowing, Mowing”
  1. Kathi cook on June 4, 2014 at 6:19 am

    I do the mowing due to my husbands “allergies”. I have a self propelled push mower. I enjoy mowing, but hate hate hate weed whacking and edging. Our lawn is way too small for a ride-on mower,but we have lots of landscaping features to edge ie patio, stone walls, and raised beds.

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  2. kristin @ going country on June 4, 2014 at 6:21 am

    I used to do it all, before children. Now it’s all my husband, who gets very bitter about the whole thing. We have a few acres of grass in various places, so it is onerous.

    Our rough, sloping property kills mowers quickly. We’re on our fourth riding mower in 8 years. We bought one brand-new, which was the cheapest junk ever and only lasted two seasons before the motor burned up. For the last three years we’ve had a Wheelhorse, probably about 20 years old. The thing is solid steel, built like a tank. My husband does have to fix it a couple of times a season, but at least it IS fixable and appears to be immortal.

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    • Susy on June 4, 2014 at 7:19 am

      Exactly why we got a vintage one, it will last so much longer than a new one (with proper care & maintenance of course).

      Reply to Susy's comment

  3. Adelina on June 4, 2014 at 6:22 am

    My husband is the one who does all the mowing around here. Not too much yard but it is downhill and steep in lots of spaces. Use to take about 4 hours to do, but we bought a used ride on mower and it has cut the time in half. It also does a better job then the push mower.

    Reply to Adelina's comment

  4. daisy on June 4, 2014 at 6:26 am

    I miss mowing. We had a riding mower I could actually operate when we had our acre property, but now in suburbia, my hubby does it with his newer model. I remember saying when we moved here, that folks in the neighborhood would probably laugh seeing our ride-on, as all the houses are on tiny lots. It turns out almost everyone has a rider! Go figure!

    Hoping to get back into the mowing when we move up north!

    Reply to daisy's comment

  5. Amy P on June 4, 2014 at 7:39 am

    We mow about 5 acres and both dh and I enjoy mowing. I is so calm and relaxing. It really is a working meditation time.

    Reply to Amy P's comment

  6. amy on June 4, 2014 at 8:29 am

    We use a vintage push mower that runs like a champ. We picked it up years ago at Goodwill for I think about 50.00 bucks. I used to do all the mowing and loved it….very soothing to me and wonderful exercise….but now….I have a smidgen of carpal tunnel so my youngest son does the bulk and I do all the trimming.

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  7. Sam on June 4, 2014 at 9:26 am

    We split the job between myself, my sister, and our dad, using a self-propelled push mower. It does the job in about twenty minutes, since we don’t have much grass left in our corner lot (too many garden beds!).

    I noticed that y’all have a beehive in the background- is this the one you talked about last year or did you get a new colony?

    Reply to Sam's comment

    • Susy on June 4, 2014 at 9:40 am

      It’s the one from last year, though no bees are currently living in it!

      Reply to Susy's comment

  8. MN Reid on June 4, 2014 at 10:49 am

    My wife does the mowing…when someone is around to start it for her. She loves it. I like that, because that gives me time to garden, which she knows little about. If I’m not around to start the mower, she weeds the gardens.

    Reply to MN Reid's comment

  9. whit on June 4, 2014 at 10:50 am

    We have about five acres split into 8 paddocks and a couple of display yards and gardens. While Hubbie is incharge of weed burning or edging, I am in charge of the mowing, or the parts that i can anyway. Since we homeschool and my daughter has Irish dancing classes often in the week, I get to what I can. Some is hillside, so that doesn’t get mowed as often.

    Hubbie picked out a new Deere when we moved, and it works great. Wish we had held out for a tractor with it’s multitasking abilities. Especially as our ground is really uneven and get jostled about so, when I am done mowing I usually feel as if I’ve been in a street fight or something. Hoping to hand off the mowing responsibilities to a cow or crew of sheep soon. That with be a huge relief, and a tasty one, unlike the Deere is now.

    Reply to whit's comment

    • Susy on June 4, 2014 at 11:00 am

      The jostling is crazy, you definitely notice more with a riding as opposed to a walk behind mower. We’re hoping to get cows as well to help with the mowing!

      Reply to Susy's comment

  10. MN Reid on June 4, 2014 at 10:52 am

    I forgot to say that we were just given an electric mower. I am happy happy happy about that, because I recently learned that a gas mower emits the exhaust equal to running 4 cars for an hour!

    Reply to MN Reid's comment

  11. Jennifer Fisk on June 4, 2014 at 11:20 am

    I like to mow lawn because of the instant gratification achieved. When I lived in town and was married, I’d mow while he made dinner and I didn’t care what he served. Since moving out of town on to 12 acres, I mow about an acre total. I use a mower with bagger which gets dumped in the chicken pen. They are so happy to have all that grass to dig through.

    Reply to Jennifer Fisk's comment

  12. Karla on June 4, 2014 at 2:16 pm

    I do the mowing, and I use a corded electric mower. It’s a lot like vacuuming the lawn, though with carrying bags of mowed grass and leaves to garden beds and the compost pile it’s a lot more work.

    Reply to Karla's comment

  13. Melanie Allen on June 4, 2014 at 3:36 pm

    We use the all-purpose tool – they mow, weed and fertilize all at once. Babydoll sheep!

    Reply to Melanie Allen's comment

  14. Nebraska Dave on June 5, 2014 at 7:51 am

    Susy, over the years I’ve used every kind of mow there is. I’ve had push non motorized reel mowers, push mowers with self propulsion, mowers with out self propulsion and the list goes on. I’ve never owned a rider though. Most of my mowers were inherited from other people when they decided to buy a new one. So my mowers were already tired when I got them. The nearly 30 year old Honda mower I was currently using decided to just drop the blade out on the driveway when started up for this year’s mowing season. After 29 years of whirling round and round the bearings in the blade clutch just gave out. The clutch assembly costing nearly $300 plus labor for installation made the repair or replace decision a no brainer. I liked this Honda mower so well that I purchased a new one at my friendly repair shop. It was way more than I wanted to pay but is it ever a sweet mower. I’m hoping this mower will out last my mowing days. If it last 30 years like my last one, I seriously doubt I’ll be mowing when I’m in the latter part of my 90s.

    I am working on setting up an irrigation system for Terra Nova Gardens. I have been given a big tank (275 gallons) to use as a storage tank for the spring water that will be pumped into it. However the tank needs some serious cleaning so it will be awhile before it can be used. So as with you, I carry five gallon buckets of water to the garden plants there for watering. So far this year water hasn’t been a problem. Well, let me rephrase that. Lack of water hasn’t been an issue. Our last storm that blew through brought four inches of rain. That’s in addition to the 1.6 inches just a few days before that.

    Have a great mowing watering day.

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  15. Chris on June 5, 2014 at 5:54 pm

    Yes, we are also ditching our older model rider due to the exhaust emissions..yuk and just plain not energy efficient…I know they don’t build em like they used to but just like cars, we have to move on to better energy efficiency if we want to do the right thing for ourselves and the planet!
    So right now we mow as little as possible and are slowly converting un used lawns to more productive uses, such as garden beds, compost heaps, butterfly, bird and bee habitat, forage for livestock…things that make way more sense than lawns! :)

    Reply to Chris's comment

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This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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