Anyone who thought they had a manly lawn mowing machine hasn't seen the apparatus our local farmer uses to cut the hayfield in front of our house or the alfalfa fields down the road. He took out his mega-mower for the first time this season, so the smell of cut grass is filling the air. You'd think you were in Nebraska or Kansas when you see this thing come, but, no, we're still here in Richmond, Vermont. Amount of time it takes them to mow 1-2 acres: 30 minutes (maybe less).
In other mowing news, our Neuton electric cordless hand mower is the finest push mower I have ever operated. Quiet and clean, I never have to check or change the oil -- because it doesn't take oil! It goes for about 2 hours, and then you plug the battery back in to recharge. We use it to mow the dog's fenced yard and the hill in front of the house.
Lately, however, it's been the primary mower since our old, used ride-on mower has been unpredictable at best. It runs okay, but the blades sometimes choose not to turn. The Neuton is not really made to do the whole lawn, but it's been performing above and beyond the call of duty this season. Meanwhile, the ride-on has been a real under-achiever. I saw an electric and cordless ride-on mower advertised recently for just $6500. I guess I'll check the classifieds for a used one in a few years.
During that time, however, I'd like to see a little better performance out of our ride-on.
4 comments:
We got the little (14) Neuton to do the edging around flower gardens, spruce tree seedlings, etc. Works well. I especially like not having to pull a starter cord everytime the mower stops, which is often during the edging operation.
Last time I pulled a pull-cord, it broke and I almost threw out my shoulder. So now I have the Neuton.
And an update: thanks to the consulting services of David Aiken, the ride-on mower is now functional... and driving better than ever!
What precipitated the purchase of the Neuton was a similar pull-cord experience. The old Craftsman rotary, purchased used for $50 from "Lawnmower Man" about 8 years ago, finally gave up. After a couple of pull-cord pulls resulted in the pull-cord handle snapped back and hit me in the face, I decided it was time to take advantage of the $100 trade-in for a Neuton. (What do they do with all those gas-mower tradeins?)
i'll put some sleuthing work into what happens to old gas lawn-mower trade-ins. Might be a topic for my next article!
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