Be Good Not Bad by Brian Warren

As homeowners we’ve had to buy a few things to “complete” our house. A mop, paint, etc. Among these things is a mower.

I haven’t bought a mower since i was a kid. I mowed a lot then, spending much of my summers growing up in Louisiana and Colorado mowing neighbors’ yards and procrastinating mowing my own.

Now we live in a small house with a medium-sized yard. Big for the city, but small if you’re used to a farm. We went mower shopping about a month ago and decided to get a reel mower. No, not a real mower; a reel mower. No gas, no plug, no Mr. Fusion. This is powered by your walking behind it. This is about as simple as mowers get.

Reel mowers have come a long way from the grunting and sweating of years past. They are still fundamentally the same though: The blades actually snip the grass, instead of whacking it with a propellor; and of course, there is no engine. The difference is that they are much easier to use – very easy to push.

The thing I like the most about the mower is how quiet it is. When I used the gas mowers growing up, I would always wear some sort of walkman while mowing, to drown out the sound of the mower. Now, I just mow in the peace and quiet of my yard. I did listen to my iPod for part of the mowing, but I’m not sure I’ll do that in the future. It was more for nostalgia than anything.