Too Tall Grass

For the past two weeks, nine days have had at least some rain. The others have been party or mostly cloudy.  The damp and gloom haven't been great for my attitude, or the cutting of the grass.

Hubby Tony bought a new lawn mower, and when he did the first cut of the year the grass was already long  He had to raise the wheels as high as they would go.  I had the same problem when I followed up with a second mowing a little over a week ago, and kept the wheels where they were.   Since then the grass been growing luxuriantly, and short rain-free breaks haven't been long enough for things to dry out.  

When I walked through the grass yesterday morning, the blades covered my shoes.  It needed to be cut!

Last night as I was cooking dinner I heard a neighbor using a mower and decided that if he could do it we could too.  However, Tony had an appointment to go to, so if the grass was going to get done it would fall on me.  After I ate I left Tony to clean up the kitchen while I got on my grass cutting shoes and headed out the door.

The new mower starts up like a champ, and turned out to be the easiest part of the job.  I only had to push it a couple of feet to find out that the mower would have a hard time with the long grass. 

Tall grass is difficult to cut, and tall, wet grass is even worse. The mower has a nice self-propelled function, but that was unusable with the thick, unruly grass.   If I went too fast the motor would get overwhelmed and stall. I eventually figured out the best procedure...walk two steps forward and one back, lift the front of the mower a couple of inches to allow any accumulated clippings to shoot out, then repeat.

However, after a couple of successful passes across the yard I'd get cocky, go too fast, and the mower would stall again.  Every time it stalled a large clump of wet clippings were left behind. (After I was done I tried to go back with a rake and get them all up, and Tony made a second pass when he got home.  I don't think we were completely successful.)

When I was done the grass looked much better, although there were weird tufts standing up here and there that managed to avoid being cut.  There were also grass clippings and wheel tracks up and down the driveway.  I pulled the spark plug on the mower, turned it over, and removed massive, damp, thick grass mats from underneath.  I also tried to remove the green stains from the driveway, then came in and did the same with my hands and clothes.

Our plan was to lower to blade a notch or two and cut the grass in a couple of days and break the too-tall cycle, but last night I was laying in bed and heard the rumble of thunder...then the sound of rain.  The forecast has precipitation in the forecast for most of the days in the next week.

I'm not optimistic that our plan will work. 

Five years ago today: The Cruise Diaries--It's Grand!