Exercising responsibility

Today I finally mowed the back lawn—took two goes because the grass was so long. Still duty called, and that call was answered.

It’s been six weeks since I was able to mow the lawns. I needed a day it wasn’t raining—preferably the second of two. But between a lot of rain (it IS winter…) and a couple (very) cold snaps, I just couldn’t get to it. Today was the day—I thought.

First go, I kept nearly stalling the mower, and that quickly drained the battery. While I waited for it to recharge (and I can neither confirm nor deny a brief nap happened in that time), I went out with the line trimmer to do the fence line and to use it as a brush cutter on the longest patches of grass. I drained its battery, but I had another of that type and put it in.

I went back out with the mower and its newly re-charged battery, and this time I tilted the mower back when I hit really long patches. I’m aware that’s potentially dangerous, but it worked, and I was able to finish the lawn. I then hosed down the mower, especially the underside (due to all the wet weather, and the length of the grass, the clippings clumped underneath). The battery was nearly drained again.

I didn’t mow the front lawn, but it’s just now getting to the point where I think, “that’ll need a mow soon,” and that’s been more than two months since I last mowed it. That pretty much shows how much faster the back lawn is growing than the front is.

Right now, I plan on mowing the back lawn the end of next week so I get the mowing under control as we get closer to Spring and the rapid growth season (though it appears my lawn didn’t get a copy of the schedule…). I may do the front at the same time.

All that fun wore me out! At least it closed the Move and Exercise rings on my watch (screenshot above)!

Footnote: The blue ring is “Stand”, which the watch makes me do for five minutes every hour. I almost always close that one, but it takes until evening because it measures over 12 hours. I usually close the red Move ring (a measure of activity and kilojoules burned beyond what we need to stay alive). I very seldom close the green Exercise ring—usually just when I mow the lawn(s).

This post is a revised and expanded version of something I posted on my personal Facebook this afternoon