Last week I visited some friends of ours who live nearby. They had jokingly said I could come up and spend some time on their ride-on mower. As I’d been thinking of doing some mowing at the property we’re currently on I decided it would be a good opportunity to get some tips on how to do it properly. My usual approach to things like that is to jump in and if I don’t break anything it’s gone well. So the chance to actually get a lesson first seemed particularly sensible – a new approach!
So here’s what I learned:
1. Wear gloves & earmuffs
2. Go in a direction so the grass cuttings get sprayed across the area you’ve already cut
3. Avoid the wombat holes. Fortunately, ride-on mowers are light enough to extract from large holes single-handedly.
4. When playing chicken with a chicken, let the chicken win. Spreading fresh blood & bone was not part of the job and so I had to keep going around the chicken who had decided the path of an oncoming lawnmower would be an excellent place to find things to eat.
So, having spent a couple of hours cutting the grass at our friend’s place I felt I could take on ‘our’ place.
The first thing I realised was their mower was a considerably newer model than the one we had. After pumping up the tyres and working out how the starting system worked (it required patience, perseverance and the judicial use of abusive language) we were on our way. Getting the cutting height right was also interesting and there are a couple of grass areas which look like someone has slipped with the clippers while giving someone a hair-cut.
On the positive side it was a lot of fun – a bit like an unlimited dodgem-car ride where you have trees, holes and rocks to avoid rather than idiots trying to break your neck by ramming your car (or is that the point of dodgems?).
So, after 4 hours of arm-muscle building (it’s amazing how heavy the steering on a little thing like that can be) I had a couple of acres of “lawn” of which I was very proud. Have you ever noticed how you think having a before-&-after photo would be a really good idea when you’ve only got the “after” shot available?
Oh – there was one more thing I learned – wear long pants. My knees now look like an English tourist after a couple of days in Queensland. Thankfully there’s Aloe Vera.