Push It! Push it Reel Good!

My husband offered to cut the grass yesterday.
Not typically a major event, but it was the first time in more than four years. See, about six years ago, after I started into my quest for more sustainable, purposeful living, I took over the lawn mowing duties. To be fair, the two events were NOT related - it was pure coincidence.
The shift in duties happened because my husband’s ankle had been crushed in an accident, in July, and he couldn’t cut the grass – which was growing at an insane rate.
Then our gas powered lawn mower died a slow, obnoxious, black-smoke-sputtering death.
But I didn't want to buy another gasoline mower - if I was going to cut the grass, I was going to do it my way. So, budding environmentalist that I was at the time, I bought a push reel mower.
Yes, a push reel lawn mower what our grandparents grew up with. And yes, they still make them. Check out the offerings at Clean Air Gardening.
My husband thought I was crazy.
“Do you know how hard those things are to push?”
I tossed a skeptical look at him. “Nope. And neither do you.”
Everything I’d read said that push reels are actually quite easy to push, as long as the grass isn’t too high — and even a gas powered mower can get bogged down by tall, predatory clumps of crab grass. And guess what? They ARE easy to push.
My husband was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was when it took it for a test push a few months later. But then we moved to a house that had a lawn far too large for a push reel to handle; or at least far too large to do in a reasonable amount of time.
Now we have a yard much smaller than we did even when I first purchased the mower. It takes, even with this old-fashioned Scotts Classic Push Reel (I purchased at Lowe’s in Owensboro for ~$100), 15 minutes to cut the grass. And we could probably do it while the rest of the neighborhood is asleep. Except for the light, metallic wish-wish-wishing, the push reel doesn’t make much noise (certainly nothing compared to a gas mower).
It’s one of those many things that I’m sure causes the neighbors to look at us like we are quite an oddity.
Why use that old fashioned thing when you could use a gas mower and get it done faster?
Well, several reasons, actually. Our yard is so small, the time savings actually is negligible. It would take about as long to pull-start a gasoline mower as it would to simply take the push reel from garage to grass and start walking.
I don’t need to buy extra gasoline for it! And at $3.80 a gallon now, $5 a gallon predicted by next summer... not having to buy gas for a lawn mower? Seems pretty smart.
And hey, I can still hear the birds while I’m cutting the grass.
There also are articles that indicate it’s better for the health of your grass (did you know that many golf courses use a gasoline powered super reel to cut their grass!). Apparently, the scissoring action is less damaging to the overall plant than the whacking style of gasoline-powered mower blades.
The push reel doesn’t handle leggy, flexible weeds particularly well (specifically dandelion fluffs), but if you’re crafty, you can figure that one out.
Fifteen minutes after he started, my husband walked back with the push reel to put it in the garage. He was smiling.
I think I turned my husband from a doubter to a fan.
We may actually fight over who gets to cut the grass now. And what kind of people fight over who GETS to mow the grass?