I remember when Dad used a reel mower in Virginia. I thought it was cool. It whirred, it rolled, it made that cool snih-snih-snih-snih-snih sound. Now, I have one. I don't think of them as "cool" anymore.
I have learned things. Mostly I've learned that what I had previously dismissed as "obsessive" lawn care stems from a past where gasoline-powered lawn mowers were expensive and rare.
Take the hatred of moles. It's not aesthetic distaste for yard-spanning, meandering tunnels disrupting the smooth expanse of lawn. Those tunnels collapse into yard-spanning, meandering, impossible-to-see-in-uncut-grass soft spots exactly wide enough to trap a mower wheel. The dirt excavated from those tunnels? That goes into large blade-dulling mounds that stop the blades. Those lovely trees that shade your lawn . . . drop sticks, twigs, even! -- that are more than sufficient to bind the mower. Again, abrupt stop. If you rake, thoroughly, before cutting, you'll only stop on a stick once per pass. A group of tough, woody Dandelion stems is sufficient to bind the mower. And, invariably, some of the stems grow close enough to the ground that the blades pass over them. Leaving you with the certainty that they'll grow back before the next round of mowing. Crabgrass, Quackgrass, whatever you call it? That stuff that doesn't grow as a smooth carpet of green, but rather as large, above-ground-level clusters? That stuff is dense, tough, and exactly the right height to stop the blades. Again, hating it is not unreasonable from the perspective of a reel mower user.
And, the dog. Your joyful canine companion. Who hunted moles, while you cheered. After all, moles are bad, right? Collapsed mole tunnels are bad. Dog holes are much worse. In fact, the dog will convert her favored area from smooth lawn to an ankle-turning, not-a-level-square-foot-in-it nightmare of wheel-stoppage. And she isn't afraid of the mower. She'll stand in front of you, with that hurt expression in the big brown eyes, as you yell at her to move or get hamstrung. Not to mention the inevitable -- finding a "deposit" when the blades convert it into a "weaponized aerosol." (No, you won't find them all before you cut.) You'll find yourself fondly remembering the stick-strewn area where you stopped only once per pass, rather than every 3-5 feet.
When you buy one of these, the description usually mentions that golf courses use reel mowers as finish-cutters on the greens. This leaves you with the idea that you'll get a similar result. Yeah, . . . no. Reel mowers cut better than anything else when you're cutting homogeneous grass, on a perfectly flattened surface, with sharpened blades, and you never let the grass get tall enough to be a problem. Towing the reel mower behind a small tractor doesn't hurt, either. Oh, and you wont get a satisfactory cut with one pass over the lawn. You'll have to cut it twice, perpendicular directions, to get something that looks like you cut it with something other than a scythe. And you still must have trimmer, 'cause you ain't getting close to anything. The blade-cage is a good 3 inches from the outside of the wheel.
Still, there's no smoke. There's no $4-a-gallon gasoline to purchase. It's 3-4 hours outside. You can run it at 8 AM on Sunday and the neighbors don't even know. Or 10 PM on Tuesday. And the blisters heal by the next day.
I have learned things. Mostly I've learned that what I had previously dismissed as "obsessive" lawn care stems from a past where gasoline-powered lawn mowers were expensive and rare.
Take the hatred of moles. It's not aesthetic distaste for yard-spanning, meandering tunnels disrupting the smooth expanse of lawn. Those tunnels collapse into yard-spanning, meandering, impossible-to-see-in-uncut-grass soft spots exactly wide enough to trap a mower wheel. The dirt excavated from those tunnels? That goes into large blade-dulling mounds that stop the blades. Those lovely trees that shade your lawn . . . drop sticks, twigs, even! -- that are more than sufficient to bind the mower. Again, abrupt stop. If you rake, thoroughly, before cutting, you'll only stop on a stick once per pass. A group of tough, woody Dandelion stems is sufficient to bind the mower. And, invariably, some of the stems grow close enough to the ground that the blades pass over them. Leaving you with the certainty that they'll grow back before the next round of mowing. Crabgrass, Quackgrass, whatever you call it? That stuff that doesn't grow as a smooth carpet of green, but rather as large, above-ground-level clusters? That stuff is dense, tough, and exactly the right height to stop the blades. Again, hating it is not unreasonable from the perspective of a reel mower user.
And, the dog. Your joyful canine companion. Who hunted moles, while you cheered. After all, moles are bad, right? Collapsed mole tunnels are bad. Dog holes are much worse. In fact, the dog will convert her favored area from smooth lawn to an ankle-turning, not-a-level-square-foot-in-it nightmare of wheel-stoppage. And she isn't afraid of the mower. She'll stand in front of you, with that hurt expression in the big brown eyes, as you yell at her to move or get hamstrung. Not to mention the inevitable -- finding a "deposit" when the blades convert it into a "weaponized aerosol." (No, you won't find them all before you cut.) You'll find yourself fondly remembering the stick-strewn area where you stopped only once per pass, rather than every 3-5 feet.
When you buy one of these, the description usually mentions that golf courses use reel mowers as finish-cutters on the greens. This leaves you with the idea that you'll get a similar result. Yeah, . . . no. Reel mowers cut better than anything else when you're cutting homogeneous grass, on a perfectly flattened surface, with sharpened blades, and you never let the grass get tall enough to be a problem. Towing the reel mower behind a small tractor doesn't hurt, either. Oh, and you wont get a satisfactory cut with one pass over the lawn. You'll have to cut it twice, perpendicular directions, to get something that looks like you cut it with something other than a scythe. And you still must have trimmer, 'cause you ain't getting close to anything. The blade-cage is a good 3 inches from the outside of the wheel.
Still, there's no smoke. There's no $4-a-gallon gasoline to purchase. It's 3-4 hours outside. You can run it at 8 AM on Sunday and the neighbors don't even know. Or 10 PM on Tuesday. And the blisters heal by the next day.
