The House Husband

Today I was mowing the lawn. Over the last two weeks, there has been quite a bit of rain and it was pretty thick. I was about two thirds of the way through when suddenly the mower fell apart.

I was a bit surprised when the grass catcher came away but was even more so when the handle started moving sideways as well. At first I thought a bolt had come loose but on examination I realised the metal base had completely rusted through and had finally come away.

That's what I call a rust bucket

It was very sad. We’ve had the mower since we first moved to Farnham; when we lived up on Folly Hill. We’d just moved from Aldershot where the back garden was in fact a square of grass the size of the lounge room carpet which we didn’t bother mowing – I think we paid someone £2.50 to do it for us. But Folly Hill was different. It had a huge back garden and it was nearly all grass.

We headed down to Homebase and bought the best one for the size of garden. It cost us £50 and it didn’t miss a blade. It mowed Folly Hill, it mowed East Worldham and then it mowed Haslemere. It was like an old reliable friend. Each year, once the winter had withdrawn and the grass had started growing again, I’d drag the mower out of the shed, fill it with petrol and yank its cable. Life started instantly.

Except for one year, that is. The year it didn’t start. It wouldn’t start at all. I thought I might take it apart and try and fix it like a computer. That didn’t work. I called a mower person and he suggested bringing it up for them to have a look. When he asked how long since its last service I looked completely vacant. Service? A mower?

Anyway, he fixed the mower and it has worked brilliantly since then, mowing from Haslemere and finally back to Farnham. That’s 12 years of faithful service without any complaint. Had I only known that for the last little while, he’s just been hanging on by a thread of rust, I may have been a little more tender with him. I may have let him live out his last bit of mowing on some soft, sweet grass rather than the rough stuff I forced him through today.

As sad as the occasion was, it didn’t get the mowing done and so we drove down to Homebase (the same Homebase) and bought a new one. The young man who picked the box up and served me tried to sell me some sort of three year guarantee, which I obviously turned down. He even carried it to the car (presumably so I wouldn’t sue the company when I fell over because of the weight). Oddly, the new mower is a Husqvarna which, as far as I was aware, was a sewing machine. It cost a lot more than £50 so I’m hoping it will last about 65 years.

Once back home, it was just a question of putting the new mower together. This wasn’t that difficult and I was soon ready to go. I thought I’d better read the instruction sheet before starting it up. It was then that I noticed it needed oil. The first thought that went through my head was that the young guy could have tried to sell me some oil rather than insurance. My second thought was how the old mower had managed to work for 12 years without me giving it any oil.

I took myself down to the garage and spent a silly 15 minutes trying to work out which bottle of oil to pour into the new mower. I sort of picked one at random, bought it, took it home and poured it in. After adding petrol, it started fine and I finished the mowing in pretty quick time.

Anyway, that’s basically the story of today. Oh, the computer is slowly dying as well but that’s another story.

The new mower having been put through its paces

I haven’t been able to spend a lot of time in the garden this week. What with cricket, football and rotten weather, the grass, especially, has gone a bit mad. The plan (as of Thursday anyway) was that I’d mow on Sunday morning. That way it would have all of Saturday to dry off. Of course, I was keeping my fingers and toes crossed with great expectations that it wouldn’t rain.

When our social plans were altered for today by the advent of Mirinda’s lurgy, I decided to put it off for a few hours, giving it longer to dry properly. The problem is that when I mow the grass when it’s wet, it doesn’t collect in the catcher very well but, rather, chucks great chunks all over the garden which means I have to rake. Because raking is a right pain in the butt, I never want to rake. So, logically, I wait for it to be dry.

Actually, on the way into Farnham for the second time today, I spotted a guy mowing his lawn IN the rain. Nothing odd in that, you’d think. How is that a problem? The only problem, as far as I could see, was the fact that he was using an electric mower. Call me stupid but that doesn’t seem to be very smart. Or is it waterproof electricity that’s used in electric mowers? I don’t know. Mine runs on petrol.

It may be an indication of how sad some people are but I have found a forum where the members argue vociferously about whether to mow in the rain or not. Seriously. It seems the problem is that big mowing companies can’t afford to turn down business so they mow whatever the conditions, regardless of whether it works or not. This I can understand however, why would anyone actually pay someone to mow a lawn improperly?

Here’s a short quote from the forum. I thought it worth including as I don’t really understand much of it.

When the grass is wet I have a problem with grass clippings getting stuck under the deck, I use Raptor mulching blades with a scag 36″ w/b ….. I here the blades hitting the stuck clippings.. I try avoiding cutting when wet. Never when it’s raining…..

However, something that concerns me more than grass clippings under the deck is how stupid does someone have to be to mow in the rain with an electric mower? And it wasn’t spitting, either. The rain was seriously coming down. I was drenched so I can vouch for it.

That was the problem, actually. It rained a couple of times on and off through the day, separated by teasing blue skies and sunshine. Of course, all gardeners will know what this means: the grass never actually gets dry. And so, consequently, I didn’t mow. At present, I’m looking at Plan C – mow tomorrow.

The Borough, Farnham, rain threatening

Mirinda has spent the day in bed. Well, most of it. And she’s feeling much better. We’re hoping she’ll be able to spend some time outside tomorrow.

Today marked the beginning of my mowing for the year. I figured it was time when I couldn’t find Day-z and, after two hours of searching, realised she was lying down in the back garden. Mirinda has a cold so I locked her in the bedroom and, taking the dogs with me, I spent a goodly amount of time trying to extricate the mower from the shed. This finally accomplished, I found some petrol, filled the mower and then started the job.

The weather was perfect (still a total lack of contrails), not too hot, not close to cold. I spent the next hour happily cutting grass. It normally takes around half an hour but the grass was so long, I needed to empty the catcher twice as many times. After finishing, I sat on the patio with a beer, admiring my handiwork.

Mirinda finally made an appearance and we sat outside for a tea/coffee. She says the garden looks much better just having the grass cut. I agree. You can see the tulips better. Speaking of which…here’s the red ones.

Our red tulips in the evening sun

We were going to St John’s tonight to celebrate a certain someone’s birthday but, due to illness, I had to cancel. We have rescheduled for next week instead.