Cutting The Grass

At our house, cutting the grass is my job. But only because I really enjoy doing it. When I was a kid, my parents had to force me or pay me to do it; mostly the former. We have half an acre here in France (a bit over 2,000 square meters), so it's a decent size, but not too big. Of course, there are many obstacles to cut around.

This is a little powerpoint map I made of our property a while back.
Click on the image to see it larger.

The lawnmower is a standard walk-behind model, although it is self-propelled so I don't have to push it. But negotiating all the obstacles (trees, shrubs, grape vines) means I'm constantly lifting and pushing/pulling the thing a lot of the time.

Those of you who know me won't be surprised that I keep a spreadsheet log of when I've cut the grass and how frequently for each year since 2003. It includes how much gas I've bought, when I do the oil changes, and when I get the blade sharpened. I know. Nerdy.

A man and his machine.

For example, I know that I've cut the grass seventy times since we moved into the house in 2003. The average interval between cuts is seventeen days (that doesn't include winter, when I don't cut).

The year I cut the most was 2004, with fifteen cuts for the season. The year with the fewest cuts was 2006; only ten. I don't count 2003 because we arrived in June, and the cutting season usually starts around the end of March each year.

This September cut could be the last of the year, but it's not likely. The latest cut so far was October 27, 2003. Since then there have been two other years when the final cut of the season happened in mid-October.

So far I'm averaging about twenty liters of gasoline each season. But we also use the gas in our garden rotary cultivator, so it's not all for the lawn. And when I say "lawn," I use the word loosely. The yard is probably no more than fifty percent grass. The rest is a mixture of other little green plants that are anything but grass.

The woman who owned the house before us called it a little prairie. That's a pretty good description.