A Green Lawn

We moved to a house in town last fall and decided to downgrade to a small push style lawn mower.  I surfed craigslist to find something affordable, when I stumbled upon an ad for a vintage manual mower.  I have always wanted to try one of these motorless mowers, and so I was immediately interested. 

The gentleman who was selling the manual mower said it had belonged to his wife's grandfather who had maintained it well.  He was kind enough to give me a demonstration of how the mower worked. 

I was sold as soon as I saw how beautiful the grass looked after being cut with this "old" mower.  It was a short and even cut with no clumps of grass or mowing lines.  I gave the mower a try, and realized using it would also be great exercise.  So I bought it on the spot and was excited to start cutting my overgrown lawn.

I realized right away that I needed to adjust the blades because the grass was so long.  But I was amazed to see that even the thickest parts of my lawn looked great.  I also had to rake some twigs out of the back yard before I mowed it so the blades wouldn't jam.  Even so, I still finished the entire corner lot in about an hour.  Not much longer than a motor push mower would have done.  By the time I was finished, I was sweating and felt like I had really accomplished something. 

I did not have to pay for any fuel or lug around smelly gas cans.  And I got a great cardio workout without a trip to the gym.  My yard looks awesome, and I know that next week my grass will take even less time to maintain, and won't cost me a thing!