Yardwork Is of the Devil

I hate lawnmowers, and lawnmowers hate me.  I now have more lawnmowers than a body ought to own, and how many work?  Go ahead, hazard a guess.  Well, it depends on your definition of "work". 

For example, our riding mower "works" if you don't mind jump starting it nine times out of ten, which will almost always require pushing it up the hill to the car. We have a battery charger....somewhere.  And it has a big honking deck, since when we bought it we had five acres to mow, so it has three blades.  Right now, the middle blade doesn't work.  No, I don't know why, and I'm not picking the thing up to find out.  That's man work, and my man is convienently located in the middle of the ocean while my grass grows up to my elbows.  And I can't load it up and take it to a mower-fixer-person because it's stinking BIG.  I'm a girl.  I should not sweat.

Our new yard has lots and lots and lots of trees and bushes and stumps and rocks and roots and decks and half buried cinder blocks and other fun stuff in it, so I thought it prudent to buy a push mower at the beginning of spring.  I never expected to actually have to use it.  That's man work, right?

*WRONG*

That darn husband of mine thinks working 90 hours a week exempts him from mowing the yard.  The nerve.  So my sweet daddy comes to mow the yard for me.  I was hoping this would be a weekly thing, but he turned 70 in April and got lazy on me. By the time I actually have to break out the new mower from the box to find out it doesn't work, it's too late to take it back.  I wasn't too terribly upset because I didn't really want to mow anyway.  I used the riding mower and the yard had some paths in we could walk on.  It resembled one of the alien mazes that appears in cornfields overnight.  You know what I'm talking about?  No aliens were responsible for that; it was all me.  I beat the aliens at their own game.

Well, now that we've spied snake number eight for the summer, and he was knocking on our back door, I thought it would be a good idea to just go ahead and buy another mower.  I've already called a professional service to see if they would do it.  The owner knows me and knows our yard and he won't return my calls.  I'm sure it's just an oversight.  But anyhoo, since he must be booked, I bought a new mower yesterday and started on the front yard.  It wasn't so bad.  I got it finished a bit ago and turned to the side yard, betwixt the house and the lake. 

The grass there is at least knee high, and in places up to my shoulders.  My new mower, sarcastically called a Brute, took one look, shuddered, and died.  I walked over to my rider and decided I'd tried to smoosh the grass down, if nothing else, with that.  Here's the list of grievances I know hold against "Troy".

• Four flat tires
• Dead battery
• Blades don't work
• Wet seat

I obviously did not think this "dream house" thing through all the way.  Did I mention that Diva has taken to LAYING against the fence, trying to push it down.  So much for a fancy fence.  I have barb wire horses, I guess.  It's the only thing they respect.  Stupid fence, stupid horse, stupid yard.