The property is 2.76 acres. Enough that our “normal” lawnmower would not work. We knew that we needed a riding lawnmower but after almost 38 years of having our own lawns, we had never had this much to mow. Time for research.
There are so many options and some of the people we talked to knew less about the lawnmowers that we knew. We wanted something that would last, was a quality mower and capable of mowing the amount of land we had. I wanted Dave to be comfortable and safe.
Dave was particularly interested in adding a snow plow and maybe a bagging system to pick up the cut grass. We were drowning in information about features, horsepower and turning radius. After several hours and several stores we were more confused than ever.
We stopped at Home Depot and looked over their selection. I give credit to the young man who was helping us because he admitted he did not know some of the answers but he knew who would. June came over and listened.
“Do you have trees?,” she asked. I thought she was going to talk about mowing around them.
“Plowing your driveway will cause drifts, just as the trees will. Consider a walk behind snow blower instead.” She then explained how the snow would be thrown further away from the driveway and that we would avoid a drifting problem. Melting would be spread over a bigger area and would not become the issue that large snow mounds would.
“But this is a long driveway,” my husband said. Neither of our last two houses had a drive way, so I guess it is all relative. We’ve always had to park on the street.
“My driveway is 400 feet,” June answered. She had us beat. She then explained how it was faster to fire up the snow blower than it was to plow the driveway. Suddenly, a plow was off the shopping list and we made a mental note to shop for a snow blower in the fall.
“Try the zero turn,” she suggested. We didn’t think we needed that much machine. It mows faster, closer and is more comfortable. Comfortable caught my husband’s attention.
“Take a seat,” June urged. My husband’s eyes lit up as he settled into the seat and realized he could stretch out his legs. David has bad knees so he quickly saw the benefits. I knew if he ever needed knee replacement surgery, he could still mow the lawn using this machine. There are no foot petals, everything is done with the handles. Once he checked out the location of the cup holder, I think his mind was made up.
As soon as the closing takes place, the first thing we will buy is that lawn mower.