Mowing grass

Guns.com Vault
Gather App
opaul

opaul

US Veteran
Joined
Nov 17, 2011
Messages
2,415
Reaction score
6,257
City & State/Province
Central NC
Back in the early 60’s I mowed grass during the summer to get some spending money. Lots of fond memories pushing it down the street with some spare gas in a can looking for yards to cut.
A couple things I vividly remember was once I was mowing and the muffler fell off. I stopped and picked it up - yes I dropped it quick and it left some skin on the muffler. The other time I was mowing up next to a meter pole and to get the tall grass cut next to the pole I tilted the mower up and let it down on the tall grass. Never saw that ground rod sticking up about 3”. The mower never ran smoothly after that!
You guys got any funny/memorial mowing stories as youngsters?
 
our house in the '40s & '50s had a large back yard and there were no power lawn mowers....we provided the power...

over the spot where the septic tank was.. the grass was always extra thick..so you had to take a running start to get through that patch of grass....
 
Only that I would never buy another 2 cycle Lawn boy mower....or aluminum deck mower where rocks can blow out chunks of it.

As an adult, I had someone cutting the yard for many years. It got to the point where I could standn't the misc. upcharges, the aggravation, inconvenient time, coming every week in shoulder season when it didn't quite need it,etc.etc.
So a couple of years ago, and not because I had to do it for financial reasons, I bought a new Honda mower and do it myself. I'm no spring chicken, so I do as I please. Perhaps the whole yard, or just a section at a time.Whatever suits me. I also let the last twenty feet of the backyard go natural.
I have to say that I'm just as impressed with this mower, as I am with my Honda Accord.

A friend of mine who is a real perfectionist, had just bought a new Mercury Mystique. He was really PO'd with himself when his mower picked up a small piece of driveway blue stone, and fired it at the driver's door, causing a ding.
 
Last edited:
arjay said:
Mid 30s, snoozing on the couch,missus wants the lawn mowed now!
Can’t find my glasses,slip on some flip flops,Fire up the mower and run over a croquet wicket [emoji33][emoji33][emoji33]
First ambulance ride ever!
Click to expand...

That sounds painful almost deadly so!
 
vytoland said:
our house in the '40s & '50s had a large back yard and there were no power lawn mowers....we provided the power...

over the spot where the septic tank was.. the grass was always extra thick..so you had to take a running start to get through that patch of grass....
Click to expand...
I remember my grand dad had one of those. A mowing work out!!
 
I cut grass in a cemetery during high school. There was a grave we could not get grass to grow. In late July, you would be pushing the lawn mower down the line of head stones and walk across that grave. It was like opening a store cooler. Cold. I will never forget that.
 
Last edited:
My dad started me mowing the grass when I was just tall enough to push a mower. Never had a new mower as my dad would assemble mowers from parts that others gave him, but they never failed to get the job done. I also grew up cutting 2, 3, or 4 yards a week for neighbors and I loved it and the extra cash I earned.

Fast forward, grew up and bought a house with 6 1/3rd acres, it took 8-10 hours each week (for 20 years) to cut the grass. I learned to hate cutting grass with a passion.

Only enjoyment I got out of cutting that yard was watching the animals that would show up while or after I mowed. Quite often I had raptors and twin foxes that would come out and hunt the field while I mowed, they would just circle around me and have a feast of mice, voles and whatever else I stirred up.
 
A couple of years ago our Teenage Daughter wanted to try her hand at cutting the back yard. We showed her how to operate the mower and left her to it.

My wife checked back in a little bit to see how she was doing...She was all over the place with the mower. Not a straight line or a 90 degree turn anywhere, just odd patches of taller grass scattered all over. We still refer to it to her mowing as “The Crop Circles”…
 
Mostly I let the deer have it until it gets about 6-8" high, then fire up the John Deer riding mower and have at it. Maybe 3 or 4 times a year. When I first started mowing it I had to stop once in the while and remove all the baler twine the blades picked up from the last owner just tossing it around. Then the grass would cause it to lift up enough it would wrap around the blades. I finally got the plaace mower friendly and laid out so a mower gets most of it. Before I took the fence down and put in a big U drive I used to let a neighbor put his horses on it a couple times a year. My other neighbor has his cut and baled. I never water my grass unless it gets really dry. If you water it it grows faster and needs mowed more. Why people want to make work for themselves is way beyond me.
 
Last edited:
Czechvar said:
A couple of years ago our Teenage Daughter wanted to try her hand at cutting the back yard. We showed her how to operate the mower and left her to it.

My wife checked back in a little bit to see how she was doing...She was all over the place with the mower. Not a straight line or a 90 degree turn anywhere, just odd patches of taller grass scattered all over. We still refer to it to her mowing as “The Crop Circles”…
Click to expand...

Smart daughter
 
I loved mowing grass. In the 1980s I had a very nice lawn maintenance business.
I was very fair with pricing, only charging for actual work done. Everyone else had monthly contracts, so the customers were paying for cuts that didn't happen during drought times.
While I was expensive, I did absolute quality work. Over the years I only had 2 unhappy customers. 1 was a guy with 2 German shepherds who crapped all over the yard so I charged him extra for my time cleaning the equipment. He complained about it for 2 months so I dropped him.
The other was a doctor who kept trying to get me to mow on the weekend. I had a family and refused to work weekends. He thought he could bully me, so he was dropped. Good part was that I did both of his neighbors yards and they loved my work.
My season was about 7 - 8 months and I had no trouble making enough to live on all year.
I did everything except big tree work. Spring clean up, mulching, chem applications (I was state licenced), seasonal flower beds, irrigation maintenance, and light tree work.
I started out doing commercial but switched to all homeowners by the 2nd year, doing the high end neighborhoods.
I stayed small and exclusive. Just 2 crews, myself and a helper and my wife and a helper doing the lightest work.
Local politicians, business owners, and the like were my biggest customers.
I really enjoyed it and looked forward to going to work every day.
 
Two things stick out for me mowing grass in the early 50's. My gas can was a one gallon glass jug and Dad would not allow those new fangled rotary mowers. We had a reel mower. If we didn't like that we could always use the push reel mower.
 
When I was 11 years old we had to Arbevida sp trees in the front yard. As it turns out yellow jackets love to nest in that kind of tree. I kept running the mower up against the base of one of them and the yellow jackets came blowing out and I was covered up.

Dad was at work and Mom came running out of the house to see what all the screaming and cussing was about.

She rushed me to the doctors office and by the time we got there my arms and legs and face were extremely swollen. They had to cut my shirt and jeans off of me. The doctor stopped counting the stings at 100 but he said there were many more.

I pulled through but the doctor told us that I need to be SURE that I don't ever get stung again for 10 to 15 years as it could be fatal.

When my dad came home from work he cut down the two trees and dug up the stumps. Problem solved.

It was about 15 years later I was washing my car out on the driveway and a honey bee must have gotten in the water spray and went down to the wet concrete. I was bare foot and stepped on it and it got me good on the end of my little toe.

I freaked out for a few seconds but nothing happened. I've been stung a few more times in my life but only one at a time. I hope I never get a lot of them at once.
 
My parents and our neighbor worked out a trade. The neighbor plowed our driveway all winter and we mowed his lawn in return.

By “we” I really mean “me”. I was my father’s designated lawn mower.
At the time, to mow both yards would eat up an entire Saturday on me. After a couple seasons, the neighbor started to slip me $5 per mow. After a couple more seasons, he increased it to $10, all the while still plowing the snow.
I grew up rough and I think it made him feel good to slip me a little spending money. I don’t think my father ever knew about it.

Eventually another neighbor hired me to mow her lawn, too.
She paid me $10 and a pack of cigarettes per mow. She’d probably end up in prison for that nowadays.
 
Last edited:
I used to mow an overgrown three acres that my old maid great-aunts (God bless their souls) lived on. As soon as I turned 12, it was mine to mow for $10 twice a month. They had the smallest Craftsman mower that S&H Green stamps could buy. I had to lift that thing like a scythe and lower it slowly on the grass to keep it from stalling. I kept all my body parts, and helped pay for college. It was a two day job in the summer. Lots of folks bid on the job, until they heard the price they had to beat.
 
Last edited:
Ah yes, what fun and joyous memories. Almost as much fun as raking leaves!:eek:




iu
 
In addition to our large yard I also mowed my grandmothers yard when I was a kid. This was in the late 60's-early 70's. Grandma had an electric mower that used a power cord. Had to mow frequently because the mower was weak and would bog down in heavy grass and you had to watch out for the cord.
 
When Dad finally got a riding mower with rear bagger after the bag was full, I would sit at the bottom a a nice slope in the back yard, rev the engine on the governor spring and pop the clutch!. Did wheels up the slope.:D The bag acted like wheelie bars!


Did burn up some clutch wheels. The were easy to change;)
 
Like someone above we had a reel type mower it was a Toro. I was just barely tall enough to see over the handle when I started mowing. Everyone used to laugh at me because I'd put the mower in "road gear" and full throttle and I could barely keep up with it. It was FAST.

I loved mowing but I did need to be real careful. We had a dog in the back yard and if I forgot to do my "Easter egg hunt" and being short it could get funky running over some of those "Cocker bombs" especially if they were fresh.
 
opaul said:
Back in the early 60’s I mowed grass during the summer to get some spending money. Lots of fond memories pushing it down the street with some spare gas in a can looking for yards to cut.
A couple things I vividly remember was once I was mowing and the muffler fell off. I stopped and picked it up - yes I dropped it quick and it left some skin on the muffler. The other time I was mowing up next to a meter pole and to get the tall grass cut next to the pole I tilted the mower up and let it down on the tall grass. Never saw that ground rod sticking up about 3”. The mower never ran smoothly after that!
You guys got any funny/memorial mowing stories as youngsters?
Click to expand...



That a big problem with vertical shaft mowers, if you hit something solid....often you bend the crankshaft. We always had a big wheel (Yazoo Mower) horizontal shaft, belt drive blade mower. Many an acre of lawn mowed, and wind-rowed with a Yazoo....then raked! memtb
 
mckenney99 said:
My dad started me mowing the grass when I was just tall enough to push a mower. Never had a new mower as my dad would assemble mowers from parts that others gave him, but they never failed to get the job done. I also grew up cutting 2, 3, or 4 yards a week for neighbors and I loved it and the extra cash I earned.

Fast forward, grew up and bought a house with 6 1/3rd acres, it took 8-10 hours each week (for 20 years) to cut the grass. I learned to hate cutting grass with a passion.

Only enjoyment I got out of cutting that yard was watching the animals that would show up while or after I mowed. Quite often I had raptors and twin foxes that would come out and hunt the field while I mowed, they would just circle around me and have a feast of mice, voles and whatever else I stirred up.
Click to expand...

I bet you were bush hogging?
 
When I lived in the Texas panhandle I had a couple acres so I used a Sears garden tractor to mow. I would start before lunch and the missus would call me on my "flip phone" for lunch.
So there I am on my tractor with the phone on vibrate in my shirt pocket on a bright sunny day, when I see one of those huge wasps that kill tarantulas buzz by kinda lazy like. Just as I take my eyes off the huge spider killing machine, my wife calls me for lunch.
BZZZZZZZZZ :eek: !!!!!
Woulda made a good meme with me jumping/falling off the tractor, beating my shirt pocket with all I had to kill the evil tarantula/mankilling wasp/phone in my pocket.
 
Last edited:
When I was young I had a ton of allergies. One of the worst was grass. I could not even lay on a lawn without getting hives.
Never had to mow the lawn.
I moved out when I was 18 and had no choice but to mow my own lawn. Thankfully, the allergies subsided in my early 20’s
Mowing the yard is now something that I enjoy.
 
memtb said:
That a big problem with vertical shaft mowers, if you hit something solid....often you bend the crankshaft. We always had a big wheel (Yazoo Mower) horizontal shaft, belt drive blade mower. Many an acre of lawn mowed, and wind-rowed with a Yazoo....then raked! memtb
Click to expand...

I alway wanted a Yazoo mower but by the time I had my own house and needs a mower they didn’t make them any longer - or it could have been named a Hurricane mower. I forget which.
 
I don't know about anyone else but.........
I always thought that a lawn always looked better, if it was mowed by a reel mower.

The rotary mowers just seem to beat the grass to death and lay it over............
even though they might be a little quicker and lighter than the motor reel jobs, that I used, many years ago, with a clutch and drive system.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

CALREB
3/4 952 PC
Replies
7
Views
291
Tntcwg3
Tntcwg3
Faulkner
Down at the crick
Replies
19
Views
636
Autonomous
Autonomous
Tex1001
Air Conditioner Season is Close- Some Pro Tips
2
Replies
45
Views
1K
Tex1001
Tex1001
chief38
The sticker shock of my life!!! All because of a pineapple.
Replies
29
Views
810
chief38
chief38
P
22 Combat Masterpiece - Sideplate
Replies
16
Views
609
Thaddeus Beauregard
T

Latest posts

Back
Top