Time to mow the grass

Well, it's time to mow the grass! And for the entire summer we will be a slave to it's constant need to be cut. I have an interesting history with lawn mowers. It all started in my early 20's when I was charged with mowing my grandmothers quite sizable lawn. It was a push mower and it had ran out of gas. So I jumped in my old 1963 Ford truck and promptly backed over the push mower, flipped it over and finished it off...It was all downhill from there. I was still living with my parents, so I "helped" them with mowing the acre they lived on. I bent the blades and then the shaft on their pushmower twice in the span of a month. I ran over the property line marker - two different times...and burned up an electric weedeater cutting down some iris leaves. The replacement mower didn't last long either when I bent the shaft on it...Then I got my own mower with a grass catcher. It was the one that is guaranteed to start with one pull - NEVER! That thing is still hanging on by a thread. I think it's because it's a Honda. And not because I have had any more luck in taking care of it. I have done a good job of beating it up. And I am NOT trying to - I am actually trying to take care of them!

Then I met Chris...and I had never used a riding mower before. He was mowing grass at the bottom of the property when his brother-in-law came over to see a Subaru he had for sale. So as they talked and walked, Chris asked me to take the lawn mower up the drive. I told him that I had never driven a riding mower before and he was well aware of my mower history, but was equally confident that I could take it where it needed to go. So off I went. Up the driveway, around the curve and right into the back of the Subaru and up onto the bumper. That's where they found me when they got to the porch. A good laugh was had by all. I learned to use that mower and even without supervision. But we had some accidents along the way. I ran over some stumps and bent the blades, then I broke the mandrel that holds the blades up under the deck not once, but TWICE. Chris decided that I don't need a mower, I need a brush-hog! There have been so many various repairs on these mowers that I can't remember all of them. But you would think at some point I would no longer be "allowed" to mow the grass. And I do enjoy mowing grass (and shovelling snow). This past fall we got a brand new shiny red riding mower, and a few weeks ago he got it out and mowed the lawn. It drives totally differently from the last one we had, so I have no idea how to operate it. And something tells me I may never know.