Lawn mowing at a quick pace

A hard deadline waited. I needed to be showered, dressed and in the car in 35 minutes. It was nearly time to get to work, but I still had about a third of the backyard to mow. I had some old running shoes on, plus my stopwatch. I did a little math in my head. If I could get a certain number of strips done per minute I could get this big job out of the way before the weekend, before the rain and before I was late to work.

So I picked up the pace. I was cutting across the backyard hill. So try to picture me leaning slightly while breaking into a slight jog pushing the Toro self pacing mower. About a third of the length across includes a fairly sharp drop off. Going down that hill I had to put the brakes on a bit. Then I worked my turns like Michael Phelps and pushed right into the hard uphill. That's where I really picked up some time and a good flow of sweat. This was turning into a workout.

I kept checking my watch. I gave myself a hard end time. If I couldn't cut every last blade by then I would have to let it go to another time. Racing through my mind was the foolishness of this whole process. I had just cut this grass four days before, but it's growing so fast. The rain and the sun have a lot to do with that, but part of it's my own fault. I'm the one who spreads a bag full of chemicals over this lawn to make it grow even faster ( and greener). And there I was working hard to cut back the grass that was doing exactly what I made it do by greening and thickening up.

Clock ticking. The end in sight and a few rain clouds on the horizon I pressed forward through those final green stripes. I beat the clock by barely a minute. There would be no weed whacking today. It would have to wait. The primary mission was accomplished. Showered and changed - I still made it into the car on schedule to get to work on time. The lawn looked good. I won't have to mow it again for at least another day or two. I wonder if there's someway to take back that fertilizer to slow the growth process. Maybe Scott's could make an anti-fertilizer/fertilizer - you know a special agent that makes the perfect lawn that never needs mowing.


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