Taming the wild beast

Today I mowed the lawn. This wouldn’t be interesting except that that I’m nearing my third decade of life, and I’d never mowed a lawn until now. Not because I’d been too prissy. I’m pretty sure my parents were afraid I’d cut off my foot with the lawnmower—I wasn’t the most graceful kid. Now, nearly 20 years later, I’ve mowed the lawn for the first time. I’d like to say I feel energized and accomplished. But I’m tired, slightly cranky and I keep checking my hair for angry bugs and cobwebs. And, with two lovely sweat rings under my “girls,” my chest looked like Betty Boop closing her eyes.

This was Day Two of the mowing experiment. My boyfriend and I are house-/cat-sitting along Seneca Lake, and part of the “deal” was to mow a big, crooked, multi-part lawn. Since my boyfriend has enough manual labor at his family’s vineyards, I thought I’d help by taking over the mowing duties for the house (truthfully, this decision came after a little prodding from said boyfriend). I’d never handled a lawnmower before, but I’d watched my parents push the mower up and down our swimming-pool-sized backyard for years. How bad could it be?

Day One was with the riding mower. The mower had six speeds and a clutch. I nearly had a panic attack at the clutch scenario because of some recent experience with driving stick—I’m learning how to drive a manual car. So far I’ve had a rocky couple of weeks filled with cold sweats and multiple apologies followed by silent, violent cursing at the clutch. Needless to say, if I’d had to drive stick in addition to moving a sharp, spinning blade around a hilly lawn, we were in a lot of trouble. Thankfully, the clutch acted like a brake, and there was none of this nonsense of pedaling with two feet. I took the mower for a test drive to prove to my boyfriend and myself that I wouldn’t drive off the property, into the nearby gorge. My max speed was at three, which is about as fast as a motorized wheelchair can go, so there was no chance of that happening. I’d become one of the people that put-putted on their riding mowers at a glacial pace.

My boyfriend mentioned something about drawing a perimeter and mowing the lawn in a pattern; I nodded at this, but my mind was not sophisticated enough to start drawing perimeters or a mowing plan whatsoever. The tree trunks, exposed roots, vegetable garden, fallen apples from the apple tree and even the gorge that had seemed like wonderful accoutrement the day before now were dangerous obstacles I could destroy with a mower blade or worse, something could fly up through the spinning blades, do some crazy loop-d-loop and end up stake-like in my back. I have an active imagination.

In spite of my growing doubts and the apprehensive look that flashed across my boyfriend’s face as he drove away for work, I was left to my own devices. I jerkily crisscrossed my way from the backyard, under the apple tree, past the vegetable garden, by the front lawn flower beds and up the small hills on the side of the house. An hour and a half of gritting my teeth later, I was done. The lawn wasn’t of pristine crop circle quality, and in spaces too narrow for the riding mower, the grass rose up like a patchy buzz cut, but I was feeling pretty proud of myself. Then in my evening yoga practice facing the lawn, I locked onto a three- to four-foot long tuft of grass I’d missed. (Insert silent cursing here.)

So, back to today, the second day of mowing and my time with an old-fashioned push mower to get to the spots I hadn’t reached. It’ll be great exercise, my boyfriend told me and added something about it being calming. Whatever. I just hoped I wouldn’t prove my parent’s fear right about the mower chopping me up to bits.

I yanked the starter chord, but the machine wouldn’t start. I pulled again. Nothing. When my boyfriend demonstrated how to use the mower, it had turned on so easily. In spite of my nearly 20 tugs on the chord, all I could manage to rouse up were a few gassy coughs. Though I was pretty much convinced that the mower was sufficiently primed to explode, I gave it one more jerk, and it shook to life. I was afraid to turn it off at that point, so I tried to mow the patches in one go. In addition to pushing, there was a lot more yanking, animal-like grunting, ineffectual swatting at insects and praying that I wouldn’t disturb a hornet’s nest under the bushes. I discovered that you have to push with conviction or the mower and Mother Nature laughs at you rather maniacally. Even as I type this, I can still feel tingles in my arms and back from the thick vibration of the mower. But the tufts of grass are gone now, and the lawn will look pretty decent for the next rain. A half-hour after my attempt to tame nature, I saw two female deer chewing at the now mower-shredded apples under the apple tree. So not only did I conquer the lawn, but I fed Bambi’s mom and aunt to boot. Today’s match score for city girl vs. country: 1-0.