Perrfect Fit
The nice weather has shown again that there is life outside the intertubes. In fact, if it would stay like this forever, I’d probably not miss typing on this keyboard one bit, ever. But the people- I’d sure miss a few. After stepping into the garden and plucking one weed or blade of grass, it’s impossible to leave. The earthy, green smell and the soft dirt under palms, knees and fingernails, the birdsong, the distant neighborhood voices, seeing how the plants have grown… what a rich experience! It’s just as new each time.
Dogs playing in the yard (brown patch from the tent- lol!), sun tea, and a reel mower… things that make a perfect summer picture.
A few small other things are different too. The new Sunlawn LMM-35 reel mower got here last Tuesday, less than a week after I ordered it from People Powered Machines. The brand of my old reel mower is American Lawnmower Company. Four years with it convinced me to never go back to a gas powered mower. It also left me with a broken, unadjustable bolt, the final straw that began my search for a new mower. I had ordered a Scott’s from Amazon.com, but their free shipping seemed to mean it would take a month (literally) for the mower to get here. This meant canceling the order and bumbling into People Powered Machines, which was lucky. The company is very focused on customers, and knowledgeable about the best mowers. Brill is priced out of my range, but the Sunlawn sounded like a better fit for our weedy, patchy yard anyway.
The Sunlawn took less than ten minutes to put together. The only thing that required assembly was the handle. The sides of the mower are plastic, but it’s so sturdy that I’m not worried in the least about it breaking. Besides, the sides of it don’t do the cutting. These plastic parts do make it a cinch to adjust the mowing height, up to two inches. Two bolts, one on each side, adjust how close the blades are to the cutting bar. My old mower had four, and they were “the Devil.” The Sunlawn has springs that allow for the perfect adjustment of the blades, which have to be slightly away from the cutting bar. A metal strip is included for making sure the adjustment is just right. Since the blades don’t hit the cutting bar, they are supposed to stay sharp for years longer than other reel mowers. On this, time will tell. The mower is almost perfectly quiet, allowing for the enjoyment of more pleasant summer noises. As I said, my lawn is weedy (I’m working on this), but the Sunlawn made short, easy work of mowing it. The smaller cutting width, fourteen inches instead of the old mower’s eighteen, made no negative difference, but it does make the mower easier to push and to pick up and put away. I’m back to finishing our yard before the neighbors, on their ride-on beast, can finish theirs. 
Amazon.com’s free shipping… slow. I also wasn’t too confident in their customer service. It’s nice, too, to be able to walk into a physical store once in a while. So back to Barnes & Noble it’s been. Along with a long awaited sequel book for Krystn, a Rodale’s book on Organic Gardening is next up, because every possible help is needed to turn these thumbs green.
The kids are taking more of an interest in composting this year. We’re having a contest. Whoever adds the most things to the bin gets to have Mom do their chores. The garbage can sure looks lonely now! Bob’s friend has lots of pallets he said we could have, so we’ll use these to make garden boxes in the front yard. Then the compost will really come in handy.
Another new thing? Ubuntu. Finally, the newest version is on this ‘puter. It works well, but that’ll be a blog post that doesn’t focus on outside. Which is what I’m going to enjoy some more right now.
And the best part is we can load the pizzas up with all the bought-on-the-vine tomatoes we want, now that the latest food scare has been narrowed down.
The term “Chell with no pants on” shows up today. Well, I’m pretty self conscious, but I do aim to please, so here’s a leggy pic for those Googlers…
