Silly Gagdet Alert: Fiskars Momentum Reel Mower

I'm not sure why I'm calling this series of posts "Silly Gadget Alert." The gadgets I buy are certainly not silly. Some of them are definitely impractical and eventually unused, even if I acquired them with good intentions, like the FoodSaver that lingers as a dust collector in my basement.

Considering my love/hate relationship with lawn maintenance, I became very frustrated when my attempt at do-it-yourself mower maintenance techniques — changing the spark plug and air filter for the first time in my John Deere's nine-year history — did nothing to improve its performance.

When my gas can went empty and I computed how much it would cost to fill, I finally decided to take a plunge I'd wanted to take for years: buying a reel mower.


The idea of a mower that uses neither gas nor electricity conjures images of My Three Sons or Leave It to Beaver, where Fred MacMurray or the guy who played the Beaver's dad mowed the lawn while wearing a preppy sweater, khakis, and loafers before retiring to the living room with a highball.

The mower I settled on is made by Fiskars, the brand known for the famous orange-handle scissor and which I profiled when I was the editor of a branding magazine. I figured I'd save some money on gas, get a little exercise, and have an environmental "some of my best friends are black" retort when someone accosts me for not recycling enough: "Well, I cut my grass with a manual reel mower! Now let me continue melting this pile of Styrofoam cups."

ALSO, YOU WON'T SEPARATE YOUR SHOULDER TRYING TO START IT WITH THAT PULL-CORD THINGY
There are a few major differences between the reel mower and all the other mowers I've used in the past:

1. I can mow at night without worrying about waking my neighbors
2. The mower is only 16 inches wide (my gas mower was 20 or more inches wide), meaning I have to do more "laps"
3. Even small sticks will jam the blades
4. If the lawn is too high, you will eventually come as close to cardiac arrest without actually having cardiac arrest

Point #4 hit me hard during the first time out. While I was mowing my back yard, I was unable to get anything going unless I jogged, and then ran, to build up momentum. At first I was like, Cool, I'm getting a nice workout here, but after the fifth lap, it felt like I was pushing a Volkswagen bus with the parking brake on.

Mrs. The Anthony Show could hear me moaning and heaving between laps, so she assumed I was either wearing myself out or having the mower perform on me an "unnatural" act. (If only!)

A BRIEF MOWING-ACCIDENT RELATED DIGRESSION

DON'T DO IT!

Nowadays, many people just leave the grass clippings on the lawn, if they're not too long. Even if they are too long, however, I leave them on the lawn, where they dry out in brown clumps and my yard looks like a faded race track.

Back when we'd bag the grass, Dad would always warn us not to stick our hands into where the bag attached to the mower, just to fish out some extra clippings (for some reason, we never considered shutting off the mower before removing the bag), and amazingly my brother and I listened to him and to this day we still have all our fingers.

This sixth-grade classmate of mine wasn't so lucky. His name was Ron (I'm too lazy to make up a name for him) and he was really tall for a sixth-grader; I might be exaggerating but he might have been close to six feet tall. He was very strong and had the potential to be the school bully, but he was actually a nice guy, even if he had a propensity for bringing in tools and disassembling the desks.

One day he came in with a couple of his already-large fingers looking even larger because they were wrapped in several layers of gauze. He told everyone that he hacked them up by sticking them into the lawnmower, just as Dad (my dad, not his dad; I don't know if he even had a dad).

Eventually Ron's gauze layers became slimmer as the fingers healed, but then one day more gauge appeared, as if he were regressing.

"What happened, Ron?" I asked.

"Huh?" He looked at his hand, like he just discovered that there was gauze on his fingers."Oh, yeah...I fell in a hole."

Ron never elaborated, and I never asked him to.

GET THE DEFIBRILLATOR READY

Clear!

The next couple of times I mowed, once I had the lawn down to a manageable length, grass-cutting became a more pleasant experience. I'm looking forward to more night mowing so I can avoid the heat, and I'm able to listen to my music player without having to crank it up to "deafening."

One major drawback: I'll have to mow a few times a week to keep the length in check. I last mowed on Saturday, and it's been raining since Sunday. I can feel the lawn growing like a half-inch per day, so when we finally dry out (tomorrow, I hope) I may have to whip out a machete.