Milestone! I mowed my lawn!

Why, you may ask, is this a big deal? Because this is the lawn of my new home and this is the first lawn mowing of the year. Not only that, but I was starting from scratch. In the home I rented, someone else always mowed the grass. I barely noticed when the yard was getting shaggy.

This year I was dealing with "everyone else's lawn looks nice and mine looks awful." I also looked at the yard and dreaded mowing. The grass had gotten over long and I worried that I might kill a lawn mower.

Of course the lawn mower was an issue too. As stated, someone else has mowed my lawn for several years now. I didn't own a mower and they are not a cheap purchase. So when my stimulus package money arrived, I decided to spring for the big bucks and purchase a new lawn mower to go with the "new" house.

I searched around and decided to go to the local Thiesen's store. Boy am I glad I did. Not only did the guy there help me carry the mower out to my car, he put the small engine motor oil in it. Motor oil? In all my years of mowing (a LONG time ago) I don't remember adding engine oil. Of course, in retrospect, that might have been part of my problem with the mowers. The man at Thiesen's was really nice and explained everything I needed to know to mow my lawn without doing myself an injury. I highly recommend visiting them if one is available locally.

So, with new gas can filled with plain old regular unleaded, I headed for home to break the mower out of it's box. Mower operator manuals are not very well written. I had a motor manual and a general manual, but it was trial and error which taught me the most about running the darn thing.

Then came the task of dragging the mower up hills and over grass and around bushes and through gates that wouldn't open. But I succeeded. I mowed. I conquered my lawn. Tomorrow I visit the chiropractor. Maybe my lawn conquered me, after all.