mow money, mow problems
So after I got burned by the mower, a burning which happened because it stalled and I was trying to adjust it and because I wasn't used to the machine and didn't know where the hot parts were, I decided the time had come to buy a engine-powered mower of my own. I already have the push reel one, as I believe I mentioned in these pages, but it doesn't suit perfectly well. The problem isn't that it needs to be pushed; I could handle that, if that's all there was. After all, you have to push the power mowers too, I believe! The difficulty lay in the fact that when it cuts the grass, the cut grass pieces just lie there on the lawn, blocking the light to the live grasses and also getting tracked into the house. After I've spent all that time mowing--back and forth more times than with the power mower because of the narrower cutting area, and over the same spot more then once when the grass is thick--the last thing I want to do is go over the whole area again with the rake. So we went powered.
Also, you can't be a fully qualifed suburban homeowner if you don't have a power mower.
The principal 'problem' of the title come (aside from the price of the machine, which I will not disclose here) from the fact that we don't, on our property, posess such a thing as a shed. My plan is to keep the machine under the porch, as there is a covering panel conveniently missing at the side of the house. That it is somewhat difficult to maneuver the mower into the opening is only a minor issue, which may be resolved in time by the installation of a few well-placed pieces of wood. And down there it should be safe and dry. Sadly, the first time I used this storage space for the brand-new machine, we had the most torrential downpour I have ever seen in my life. I swear, 30 seconds after it started raining the water was running an inch deep down our street. So the mower got a little damp from the splashes. But it wasn't too bad, and aside from hundred-year storms like that it shouldn't even suffer from a drop. So really there aren't problems at all, I just couldn't resist that title.
(Now that I think about it, I wonder if I've ever been able to resist it before. Did I post an entry with that title already, last year?)