I thought of a good title while I was mowing, but then I forgot it

I went to Lowe's this morning and bought a non-motorized push (or "reel") mower. It's possible you've never seen one--I certainly had never used one before. (Of course, I only ever used a conventional gas-powered mower once--thanks, KG!) The rising price of gas has in turn affected the price of having someone else cut your grass. Well, my grass. The stuff I read online about the efficacy of electric mowers was not terribly encouraging. But I could buy a brand-new reel mower for less than it would cost to have somebody else cut the grass three times, so I figured that even if it were really difficult to use, I'd only have to use it three times and I'd still be ahead.

Plus, I like the idea of not contributing air or noise pollution, and it's good exercise (as I'm confident my arms and legs will remind me tomorrow). I have a very hard time getting motivated to be physically active for its own sake (like running in circles, for instance), but this is something I may be able to get behind. It's good for the environment, it makes my life (somewhat) simpler, and it's cheap! Sounds like me.

Here it is!

It wasn't as hard to use as I was afraid it would be, although I did discover that it is significantly harder to use on really overgrown grass--impetus to keep it trimmed. Also, it was not terribly successful on certain tall-growing weeds among the grass. It's kind of hard to tell in these photos, but there are a lot of little green stick-y type things still poking up.



The other thing I bought (at Lowe's, natch!) was a fancy pair of extendable pruning shears. The stuff in the drainage ditch out front had grown fairly unsightly, so I figured I should do some chop-chopping. Before:


And after:

Frankly, I'm not sure it's an improvement. I actually kind of liked all the vegetation, but it was getting pretty high and I was kind of concerned one of my neighbors might complain.

I did a little more than three hours of yard work in all today, and as you might imagine, I'm pretty worn out. That included the ditch and about 2/3 of the yard.

Long day ahead tomorrow--starting in the studio with Dave at 8:30 so we can get some time in before I have to head to Franklin for my babysitting job at noon, then right back to Nashville for FREE CONE DAY! Whoo-hoo!