Grass! (The Kind You Mow.)

In previous posts I've mentioned our property......
We live in a 3 bedroom, 2 bath log home on 2 1/2 acres with lots of trees.
A five acre pond adjoins our property at the rear.
It really is a lovely place......people passing in cars frequently slow, point, and come to a stop to admire the view.

We bought and moved into this home on Halloween of 1992.

Spring of '93 arrived wet........
Remember the floods of '93?
I can safely vouch for the fact that grass absolutely loves rain and 92 degree temperatures!


When the grass started threatening I realized I had overlooked something:
Our previous property was about 1/2 acre,
and I mowed that with a 21 inch push mower.
That mower wasn't gonna make a dent in this big lot with the rain coming down and grass growing like a nightmare.

I've been mowing grass for a Spinster neighbor for many years.
She owned a 38" riding mower.
She came up with this proposal: Mow her lawn for free and I could use her mower to mow our property all summer.

I was glad for the offer.....I didn't have much choice.
I had used up most of my "liquid" assets putting a down payment on the house and buying new furniture and carpeting.

Mowing this property with her mower took 5 hours!
That's a long, long time to drone along on a riding mower, circling every tree two or three times to keep from having to come back with a trimmer.
Pretty quickly I realized I was wearing her mower out. There are many trees with exposed roots on our property that were bending the mower deck on her mower. More and more nickel and dime things would break on it, and I began to be fearful something big would explode....then I'd feel obligated to buy her a new mower, and I'd have nothing to show for it.

At the end of mowing season I discussed the problem with Sara Jean:
We needed a new mower, and we needed something much bigger than a 38" garden tractor.

I started comparison shopping.
Pretty quickly I settled on the idea of spending "dinero largo" on something that would do a good job and would take the punishment this big yard could dish out.

I ended up buying a Grasshopper Commercial Mower.
I paid more for this machine than I have paid for many cars I have purchased.
But it mows the lawn and does a great job at 7.5 miles per hour......it turned a dreaded five hour task into a relatively enjoyable 2 hour experience......I love driving the thing.......I call it my "lunar lander".

We're now in our 13th season mowing with this machine. It has had a few glitches in that time, but the things that have broken have been readily replaced at a reasonable price.

It reinforced a lesson I learned some time back.......if you can afford it, go 1st class.
"Getting by" saves you money up front, but can cost you in more ways than you might imagine later.
Going 1st class with the Grasshopper has saved me time and money over 13 years, and it is still going strong!