Lawn Mower Exercise

Batman says:

At the end of last mowing season (actually 2/3rds through) our riding mower had a malfunction. That’s putting it mildly, the mower deck basically fell apart. Now this is the second riding mower that this has happened to, the first being a used mower my brother gave me when he bought one of this new fangled ‘zero-turn’ mowers. So, here I was towards the end of the mowing season and no lawn mower, no problem says I, we will just buy a new mower deck and all will be well. I did some quick checking and found that a new deck was close to $700, welp, that’s a show stopper, I have to many things planned this year to spend that kind of money on something I am only probably use one more time this year….

Fast forward, it’s June 2018 and I still haven’t cut my grass! Started worrying I was going to lose my truck in the jungle out there and every time I let the dogs out it was like hide and seek. I started to wonder what else was lurking out there (don’t tell Peach that I had seen two snakes in the past month, she dislikes them and I’m sure somehow it would be my fault), so I decided I was going to do something about the grass.

Oh! That’s right, no mower deck, remember? “We will get it over the winter, no worries” were the words I distinctly remember myself saying. Crud! Hmmm now what? Then I start remembering when I was a tad (means same as a bit) younger, the only lawn mower was a walk behind push mower (sometimes self propelled). As I started remembering cutting grass with one of these I also had memories of how much better shape I was in. But then the lazy kicks back in and I tell Peach that we are just gonna have to break down and buy the deck so we can cut grass. As we are having this discussion I am in my recliner looking at self propelled mowers half heartedly and mentioning them to Peach and relaying the story of when I was younger and better shape blah blah..to my astonishment Peach says ‘I’ve been thinking about one of those at least until we can get the other fixed’. Well then that’s a fine kettle of fish I’ve flopped into now, so I start looking at prices hoping that it wouldn’t be worth it, it was, new deck almost $700, walk behind, less than $300, and with the walk behind there are so many health benefits, 1 your walking, 2 your using arms to steer and steady, 3 stopping and moving things requires bending and lifting…. (one other benefit will be mentioned later) I think you can see where I’m going by now.

Off to Lowe’s we go (10% discount for veterans) get the new mower, and back home in less than an hour. Assemble the mower (unfold handle and put two screws in it to hold it) put the supplied oil in it, gas’er up and 5 pulls later (would have been one if I had read the directions completely and known to hold the handle down) she’s a running and ready to cut grass. Give it a few test laps and such and in about an hour the worst part was cut, and Peach wanted a turn. So show her the basics and she cranks it up and off she goes cutting the bigger but more open front yard. Hour later she’s done, yards done.

We got the yard mowed mostly, we were more active for those two hours than we would normally, walking, twisting, bending,pushing and pulling. All the exercises we try to do in our routines plus more cardio. The mower was less than half what we would have spent to fix the other and provided so many more benefits.

Oh yeah, the other benefit? Getting to watch my Pretty Girl Peach cut grass in shorts 🙂

Anyone wanna buy a riding mower…needs a lil work