"IF YOU GIVE A MAN A TRACTOR…"

When I moved from my house in New Hampshire into an apartment, I sold the mower that I had for my 200 feet on the Contoocook River to mow my modest lawn. But now in a house again, the need for a mower reappeared. There was a Sears store in town, and they had lawnmowers in the front window. Yes! So my husband came home with a standard mower from a company called "Murray™". He looked over the front lawn, took a deep breath, and pulled the rope to start. Then he pulled it again. And again. Murray™ sat quietly not making a sound. Puzzled, my husband checked all the buttons, gages and gas, then pulled again. Nothing. His inquisitiveness turned to frustration, then to irritation. He began pulling the cord again with a vengeance to the point I was afraid he'd tear a rotator cuff. Then, finally, the sound of a choking, a popping, and then IGNITION! He was ready to mow!

The front lawn was basically flat until you got to the sides of the house. Then it sloped down sharply to the back yard, which was flat for a short distance that was covered with grass. Then you came to THE HILL! It was a really steep decline left when the initial grading around the house ended and the original land began. At the bottom was a flat section leading to a second steep hill full of scrubby woods and then the pond. In my mind, places that had grass needed to be mowed. As a child I had watched my father tackle our huge lawn with a manual push mower. Eventually it was replaced with a power mower that still had to be pushed, but it made history of the grass. When the neighbors got their power mower, it was a rotary style and my friend's MOTHER did the job while her husband worked. Using this as an example I asked my father if I could do the mowing. "NO". Oh well. I would make up for it in my later years.

Meanwhile back at the ranch house, my husband carefully walked the Murray™ around the side to the back lawn and began to mow. Half an hour later he had finished the flat part behind the house, turned the engine off, and started walking "Murray" back around and up to the garage. I was puzzled. What about the HILL? I was told that only the flat part on top was going to be mowed. Say what? It was too hot and my hubby was tired out, so why argue. I would take care of the situation myself at a later time. Meanwhile that grass on the hill continued to grow longer. Even though the Murray™ was self propelled, that slope would be a challenge. I feared falling on the uneven surface especially if it was covered with long, slippery grass. How would I conquer Mount Mowerlast?

As a person who always looks to the simplest (call that most primitive) solution, I decided that even a self-propelled lawn mower would have a tough time on a steep hill covered with really long grass and tough weeds. So what would cut all this stuff? Scissors! Done by hand, cutting grass and weeds in handful sized clumps could work. Of course this meant getting down on the ground in a sitting position and covering the entire hillside by starting at the top. I began at one side, cut what was on my right (since I am right handed), sidled across to my next cutting target, cut it, and kept going until I reached the other side. At that point a slid down to my next "row" and began cutting. It took me half a day to cut that hill down to size. It was hard to decide which hurt more, my right hand or my behind. But the satisfaction of having mastered the hill was worth the pain. Now I could risk running a lawn mower on this challenging terrain.

Now to pull the starter and pray; I pulled once, twice, and then BBBRRRMMMM it was running and so was I. The choices were going across the hill or up and down, but the mower had already chosen down and FAST, so I basically ran behind it down to the flat level. That brought me to Part 2: going back up. While the mower was propelled by pushing a lever with my right thumb, there was the matter of gravity, steepness, and resistance to tough green stuff that my scissors couldn't cut through. Still, what went down must go back up, so I mustered all my strength to push the mower and my legs to their top performance. The mower had the better part of the deal since I doubt its legs were sore the next day. Then after much sweat and tears (read that as "rips" in my jeans) the hill was mowed. That night I proudly showed off my work to my husband. His response was disbelief, not that I had done it but that I had even wanted to. I could hear wheels turning in his head: does that mean she'll expect ME to do it, too? But the summer passed without incident, and I kept mowing the back as well as the front lawn.

The next year I was looking intently at the lower flat portion of the back that had been relatively easy to mow. My mind saw a place for a VEGETABLE GARDEN THERE. I had planted a small garden in New Hampshire, so surely I could do it in New Jersey. At this point my poor lawn mower had done its job, and since I was now pregnant AGAIN my husband thought it prudent that I give up my grass-cutting. To that end he decided that the strenuous job should be done by machine. A BIG machine. So when mowing season started, a truck pulled up in our driveway from the local tractor store. The driver got out to inspect the area that was to be mowed. In the front of the house he nodded and smiled, picturing an easy sale. But when he went around back his demeanor changed. We needed this thing to mow WHERE? THAT HILL? Both up and down? He shook his head and looked directly at my husband, who was drooling over the potential solution to the lawn situation, and said, "Going up that hill will bring the tractor down on top of you and kill you. So I recommend you don't use it. But if you insist on this plan, once I take it out of the truck, you've bought it, and I wash my hands of it." And with the finality of Pontius Pilot, he crossed his arms and waited. My husband stood aghast at a merchant refusing such a big sale, but he…

END OF PART ONE OF THIS ARTICLE. SEE NEXT WEEK'S www.JustMom.com to find out if