03 MayI Won’t Use a Riding Mower Until I Have to Use a Riding Shopping Cart at Walmart

About twenty years ago I moved my family from a densely populated urban setting to a rural town of 800 people. We did it for the space. I upgraded my eighth acre to five acres. Ah, breathing room. Aaaah—weeds

This small town has no sidewalks or gutters.  Every house is on at least a half acre. Additionally there are pastures  or fields behind most of the houses (think horses, mules, sheep, goats, pigs, turkeys, llamas). There’s definitely an Old West feel to the place.

The town is built in a grassland valley next to the mountains. The grasses grow tall, thick, and wild. The town was placed right on top the grasses. It doesn’t matter—they will not be stopped. Every year the town hires a street mower. That should give you an idea of the problem. The grasses grow chest high. By July they are dry tinder. A man on a tractor with a big mower behind goes up and down each side of the streets and cuts them down. I can hear the weeds laughing at our vain attempt to stop them.

There is probably a half acre of lawn around my house. Beyond that is wilderness. The grasses on the other untamed four and a half acres of my land grow tall and strong. In the back field—three acres–we let a neighbor graze his horses. They do a good job of holding back the Mongol grass horde. But that other wild acre surrounding my lawn? It’s the grass vs me, baby.

After a few expensive experiments I’ve settled on $160 lawnmower from Home Depot. It’s a simple 21” motorized push mower with no power assist. If I was more socially minded using this mower would be embarrassing.

Anyone driving by while I am mowing sees an overweight man in an acre of tall grass cutting it twenty-one inches at a time. What is he thinking? Doesn’t he know the proper tools for that job? That’s what you get when a city boy moves to the country.

Oh, I know, all right. I’d like to tell them I’m hand mowing this acre by choice. Of course that would only prove their point. What they don’t understand is the other two things at play here. The proper tools for this job cost a lot of money. I don’t have money. Second, the overweight man pushing the mower is overweight. That overweight man needs exercise. Pushing a mower is good exercise.

Seriously, I need exercise. I’m 59 years old this year. I’m old enough to start seeing the men who are older than me. There are the elderly men sitting outside the old folks home when I drive by. They wave at me from their rockers.

I’m feeling enough aches and pains to see the more disabling aches and pains of others. I go to Walmart and see people on electric shopping carts spilling off of both sides of the seat. I don’t want to judge those people. I don’t know what happened in their lives to end up like that. What I do know is that I don’t want to end up like that.

I struggle to exercise. I’ve had memberships in the gym. I find gyms stifling. I go for long bike rides on country back roads. I can enjoy those a little bit, but mostly I find them boring. I know there are people who love to bike. Time spent on a bike is fulfilling time for them. I’m not like them. I know it’s good for my health, but I still feel like I’ve wasted time. I’ll do it if there if there is no exercise that is more useful.

Mowing my lawn is useful. Mowing my lawn with a push mower is good exercise. I will mow my lawn.

Everywhere I look, even in this cowboy town, I see men and women on their riding mowers mowing their eighth acre of lawn. Everywhere. There are the fancy mowers that turn on a dime. There are tractor mowers pulled rakes to pick up the clippings. There are classic riding mowers from the 70’s. It really doesn’t seem to matter as long as it is a riding mower. They are so prevalent that not having a riding mower is almost like not having a pair of pants to wear.

As I’m mowing, and a pickup truck passes by, I feel eyes on me. I can hear the crick in their necks as they shake their heads at my naivete. What they are missing is the sweet sweat on my face; the living heat of the muscles in my legs, core, and arms as they expand and contract; and the sound of my heart beating in my ears.

Mowing is gentle, effective exercise, even in the long grass on uneven terrain. It’s easy on my joints while strengthening my heart. It strengthens my core. And while I am getting this exercise I am tending to my land, making it more presentable, lowering the fire risk. It is fulfilling exercise. I have enough mowing that I can do it three times a week for an hour. Then I do it again two weeks later. In between I have to settle for a bike ride for exercise.

I have an expensive riding mower in my garage. I used it for a couple of summers. But it’s a lawn tractor, not meant for the rough fields I used it in. It broke. I could get it fixed easily enough. But when I see the overweight man or woman riding their mower on their small lawns, and then see the poor obese person on the electric shopping cart in Walmart, I pull out my push mower and get some exercise.

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