FoxTrot Classics by Bill Amend for June 02, 2014

That old-fashioned mower is going to need a LOT of W.D. 40 (or Roger could just junk it and buy a new one).

Burn the Lawn, Problem SOLVED…

I knew a guy who had a riding mower, who had a tiny yard, not much wider & longer than the small house. THAT is lazy.

I want a riding vacuum cleaner…

one of our neighbors said screw it with grass and lawns. he removed all the grass and turned his yards into massive gardens. was thinking of doing that this year.

The difficult part is finding a real quality push reel mower these days. Almost all are flimsy things, with little heft. They bog down when you hit a dense patch. The real thing, of cast iron (extra points for a wooden roller and wood handle ans shaft), has enough weight to keep spinning. The zoop-whir of an old push mower and the smell of new cut grass untainted by gasoline fumes is the original neighborhood essence of summer.

And it’s not just nostalgia. Most folks have never seen a lawn cut with a reel mower, aside from a golf course. The grass is sliced cleanly, not raggedly torn by a horizontal blade power mower. Living in the country, I’m not a lawn fanatic, but no man is really serious about his lawn who doesn’t cut with a reel mower, especially if you have what seems to pass for a “yard” in new urban houses. .

I felt the same way when the power drive on my mower broke down.

My wife hasn’t let me mow the yard since 1993. Boy, that open heart surgery really paid dividends the cardiologist had no ideas about.

Love the cover of this month’s Sports Nut magazine!

I have a John Deere Lawnmower. Put it in the shop every other year for a tune up and blade sharpening. Stays outside in an unheated shed. Starts up on the 5th or 6th pull after being unused for the winter. – Oh and it’s over 20 years old.

I have a rototiller that’s about 10 years old. For the past 5 years, it gets started twice a year. I put a cup off gas it in and run it until it’s dry and push it back into the shed.

Gotta love those Briggs and Stratton engines.

Ah, the time of year when Roger tortures Peter by having him mow the lawn with a push mower when a power mower would be easier to use.

When our water bill went over $300 a month in the summer we took out the grass and put in desert landscaping. Keeping grass green in a Phoenix summer is expensive when you have a third of an acre of yard.

I have one of those reel mowers, I refuse to get a gas one. I had an electric one but it broke.

Ours is electric and works fine for out little yard, but my parents are in the country and goats stink so they have a riding mower.