Mowing season begins

Bring it on, baby! (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

And so begins another mad mowing season here in West Bloomfield.
Trying to keep up with large lawn that’s prolific in its grass output.
Thankfully I have the dreaded zero-turn (pictured), by far the largest, and best, investment in lawn-mowing equipment I ever made.
In Rochester we had a humble push-mower — a hand-mower, self powered — that we inherited from Mrs. Merriman.
That is, it cost nothing, and had an 18-inch cut.
We had it at Mrs. Merriman’s at first.
We mowed her tiny yard with it.
Our house in Rochester was a double-lot; i.e. twice as much lawn to mow; plus a backyard with nothing on it.
But it could be done with that hand-mower; although it eventually broke.
Our neighbor up the street was selling a similar mower in his garage-sale, so I bought it for 25¢.
Out of the two mowers, both Craftsman®, I resurrected one mower.
We still have that one.
It’s a reel mower, which Linda uses occasionally to mow the backyard within the fence.
When we moved out here, I bought the mighty Locke, used for $600.
It had a large antique Briggs & Stratton engine ya started with a rope.
I rebuilt the carburetor for that, and tuned it.
Ran fine.
The Locke weighed at least 700 pounds — I called it the locomotive. Ya didn’t dare get it into the ditch. Ya’d need a tow-truck to get it out.
It had a 70-inch cut (three gang), but was a reel mower, which meant ya didn’t dare get behind.
I had to mow the entire lawn every weekend; although we weren’t mowing the so-called “Back 40” then.
That was the mower we had when I had the stroke; and we were concerned I might not be able to horse it around.
So we bought the so-called “Greenie,” our John Deere SRX95.
It has a 38-inch cut, two blades; and was the first mower we ever bought brand-new — also our first rotary.
It’s not a lawn-tractor; only a riding mower.
The SRX95 is no longer made, and the place we bought it is no longer in business. (John Deere makes a small riding-mower with a single 30-inch blade; what the SRX95 was based on.)
But it still runs fine, although it’s semi-retired.
We use it as a brush-hog on our paths; 38 inches wide is path-width. (The zero-turn is too wide at 48 inches.)
We needed a small trimming-mower, so Linda’s parents gave us their old Sears rotary; 20-inch cut.
It was junk, but I got it running.
Everything was loose, but it ran. It also lacked a muffler.
We finally had to give up on it, so we bought a brand-new Honda walk-behind; 21-inch cut, mulching mower.
Mulch if you cover the blow-out duct; which we covered.
All our other mowers have blow-out ducts.
A couple years ago our Greenie was in the shop, probably to have belts replaced — I’d done it myself once, but it was a struggle. You have to drop everything to get at the belts.
So I borrowed the John Deere lawn-tractor owned by our recently deceased 94 year old nosy neighbor, Vern Habecker (“HAH-bek-rrr”) across the street.
I used it to mow our lawn, and it was much faster than our Greenie, plus it was 42-inch cut.
So I thought maybe I should get something like Habecker’s John Deere; i.e. faster.
At that time John Deere wasn’t selling residential zero-turns, only commercial. They wanted at least 6,000 smackaroos.
I knew a zero-turn would include a learning-curve, but that’s what all the lawn-mowing services were switching to.
So I tried other mowing-equipment stores, and found a few other zero-turns. I also found the same models at mighty Lowes and Wal*Mart for almost the same price as the mowing shops.
I went up the road to “Leif’s,” a Husqvarna outlet, and they had the mower pictured, for $3,500, the cheapest, though not tinny like some of the others I’d seen, and a residential application — not commercial.
It’s only the 18-horse Briggs & Stratton V-twin; but enough for what I do. —I’m not mowing a golf-course.
Leif’s is sort of ramshackle. It’s a wonder they can compete with the glitzy hardwares. Ya deal directly with the store-owner, who’s more a mechanic than a salesman.
The Leif’s guys are also train-nuts, so I instructed them to visit the mighty Curve, and about the Curve web-cam.
They visited the mighty Curve, and it of course blew them away; and they view the web-cam all the time.
My zero-turn was apparently assembled by a Friday crew, since it’s crippled at least four times.
And each time them guys came out and picked it up for free warranty-work. —That included replacing a hydrostatic unit free that tanked about two years out of warranty.
Try that at Wal*Mart; I bet we woulda been without a mower the entire season.
All I know is I think the world of that zero-turn. It’s much faster than any lawn-tractor ever woulda been. Boom-and-zoom; cuts my mowing time in half.
Front yard is about a half-hour; Back 40 about an hour-and-a-half; and each wing about an hour.
I don’t usually do the entire lawn, although I have.
Yesterday (Sunday, April 19, 2009) all I did was the front yard, mainly because it’s supposed to rain for a couple days. Plus it was highest.
Back 40 is probably next weekend; the wings the week after that.
May is usually the most prolific month; I end up mowing every couple days.
Plus there’s the usual wedging the lawn-mowing in amongst the blizzard of appointments and errands — plus weather.

RE: “‘Old guy’ with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.......” —My macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston, who is 13 years younger than me, calls me “the old guy” as a put-down (I also am the oldest). I also am loudly excoriated by all my siblings for preferring a professional camera (like the Nikon D100) instead of a point-and-shoot. This is because I long ago sold photos to nationally published magazines.

We live in the small rural town of “West Bloomfield” in Western New York.

Our “zero-turn” is our 48-inch Husqvarna riding-mower; “zero-turn” because it’s a special design with separate drives to each drive-wheel, so it can be spun on a dime. “Zero-turns” are becoming the norm, because they cut mowing time in half compared to a lawn-tractor, which has to be set up for each mowing-pass.

“Mrs. Merriman” is our long-ago landlady, Mrs. Hazel Merriman, at our apartment in the early ‘70s at 20 Woodland Park in Rochester. It was actually her house; she lived downstairs, and the upstairs had been converted to an apartment. The rent was insanely low, because we helped her — e.g. mowing her lawn, shopping, etc.

“Linda” is my wife of 41+ years.

Locke (nothing is my mower).

I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

“Our recently deceased 94 year old nosy neighbor” was Vern Habecker (“HAH-bek-rrr”), who was always watching us. —I had a good time with Vern; always picking on him. He considered himself a lawn mowing authority.

The “mighty Curve” (“Horseshoe Curve”), west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan, and have been since I was a child.) —Horseshoe Curve has a web-cam, but it’s awful.

My siblings all declare Wal*Mart is the greatest store in the entire universe, and that I’m reprehensible because I rarely shop there. (It’s too inconvenient and occasionally difficult and/or surly.)

Our lawn is comprised of five segments: -1) the front (in front of the house); -2) the “Back 40,” a large segment behind our house, and outside the fenced-in dog-pen and garden; -3) and -4) the north and south “wings,” fairly large segments to the north and south of our house; and -5) the small area behind our house that’s fenced in as a dog-pen. (Linda mows that small area with the small Honda walk-behind mower, since the zero-turn damages it.)