On Lawns and Lawn Mowers

We've been noticing that ours is easily the skeeziest lawn on our cul-de-sac, and we want to get it looking at least marginal. This weekend we took a few minor steps to deal with this issue. We got a little bit of weed killer, some Truf Builder and a spreader, and our very first lawn mower. First thing's first.

We got some Ortho weed killer that wouldn't kill the lawn since the lawn is more dandelions than grass at this point. I figured we could spray them down and help shrivel them up before going in and pulling them out. The cool thing about the Ortho was the sprayer. I can't yet speak to how effective the weed killer is, but the sprayer was very neat. Here's the link: Ortho Weed Killer I'll edit or post a new entry once I know whether it was effective. This morning, some of the weeds already looked like they were dying. The dandelions, which normally open up as soon as the sun hits them, were closed and looked sort of pitiful. I'm really hoping this worked because we have a major weed issue.

Once we get the weeds out of the lawn, I'm going to go to work on mowing the grass down to a reasonable level. The grass in the front isn't very long (I think maybe the neighbors helped keep it in line) but the backyard is like the freakin' Congo. Grass that's easily 12-18" tall in large sections. We need to get that chewed down to a sufficient level to where we can thatch it. There's a whole lot of dead grass in there and it all needs to come out. It's going to be tough work, but I'm really looking forward to having a pretty lawn.

In that vein, we picked up a reel mower. I hadn't used one before, but it appealed to me for a number of reasons. The first being that I work a desk job. I like getting out and doing physically demanding things as much as I can, especially if I have to be doing it anyway. I have to be outside mowing my lawn and it isn't going to be easy even with a $600 self-propelled mower, so why not spend a fraction of that and make it a legitimate workout? The other benefits are pretty huge, too. First off, it's quiet. Very quiet. I could mow at 4 AM without waking up the neighbors, I'm sure. I can pop in my headphones and listen to music or a podcast or whatever while I mow and actually hear it. Compared to what I used to have to do with the gas mower when mowing for my parents (big earmuff headphones with the volume all the way up) this will be a big step up. Also, no gas or oil or anything to buy, no nasty fumes, no spilled fuel on the driveway or in the lawn, and apparently the reel mower is actually better for your grass. The cut is actually a cut (between the spinning blade and the stationary blade) as opposed to a tear like with a rotary blade mower. If you look at the tops of the blades of grass cut by a rotary mower, they're ragged and brown. I don't know anything about lawn care, but apparently that's bad. The last thing I liked about reel mowers was their small size and low weight. I can literally pick up our reel mower and shake it to get the grass off. I don't know that most people could do that (I'm a good-sized dude) but for me, it was very cool. It means I don't have to hose it down to get the grass off and then worry about it rusting. It also means I can just hang it on a hook in the garage instead of needing to give it a valuable piece of floor real estate.

So, given all of that, we went with this mower:

Fiskars Momentum Reel Mower

It's pretty fancy, and cost more than most of the other reel mowers we saw. Still, it has a few features I really liked. It's adjustable from 1" to 4", and the adjustment is a really easy thing to do with one hand and no tools. I doubt I'll be doing it a lot, but it's already helpful for the back yard where we need to cut it at 4" first and then do passes at lower heights to work it down to a decent level. So far, it's looking good. I'll take some more pictures of the front and back yards tonight and show you what I've done so far. The other thing I liked with this mower was that it has a nice wide cutting path, and the blades aren't between to front wheels. The blades also don't actually touch each other, they just get ridiculously close. Like .003" close. This lack of contact will mean longer times between blade sharpening. That's definitely a good thing, since that's pretty much the only maintenance these things need. The heavy blades and the chain drive also help maintain momentum, making it easier to push through tall grass. I haven't done a comparison, but it seems like Fiskars really stepped it up a notch with this mower. I'll let you all know how I like the mower after some continued use, but so far I'm really impressed.

Okay, that's about it for the outside. I'll have pictures tonight, along with info on how well the weed killer worked.

As for the inside, the network pieces came in and are working beautifully. The pantry shelves are wire and we want to put a 1/4" piece of vinyl-coated MDF on there to keep smaller items from slipping through. I'm looking to do that tonight as well. I also ordered the replacement drawer and the new cabinets for the kitchen, so we'll have more space available in there. The kitchen is still small, but a little organization will go a long way for us.

The blank wall space between the kitchen window and the sliding door is just begging to be turned into useful space. Two 21" x 42" cabinets will hold a lot of goodies in there. Our cabinets were made by a company called Merillat and we found a local dealer for them. They're still making our style and color of cabinets, so we just ordered some new ones from them. I'll be putting them in myself, so that will be a blog post for sure. Adding that extra space will really help a lot. We finally unpacked all of the kitchen boxes and pretty much everything fits into the existing cabinets but it's tight and tough to keep things organized properly. Having some more space will let me organize everything the way I like it, which I haven't been able to do pretty much ever.

Thanks for reading!