Last week, I was driving and saw someone mowing their lawn, (not pictured below) they were walking normally, easily pushing the lawnmower. I was astounded.

When I mow the yard, like I did today, it is lawnmower hell. I have to take a half of a step forward and stop, because the grass makes the mower almost die, then wait for it to get it’s RPM’s back up, then take another little baby step. Often, the RPM’s continue to decline, and I have to push down on the handle, bringing the weakly rotating blade out of the grass completely. Most of the time, 60-75%, this allows the RPMs to come back up and I can take another halfa step before repeating the process.. Too often the engine dies anyway, and I have to re-start it, priming the engine by pressing the bulb and pulling the string several times.

I have been accepting this as normal until I saw the other person walking normally, pushing the mower with the properly operating engine.

My old mowers, I only needed to prime it first time, it’d start with one pull after the engine was warm. My lawnmower is only a few years old. but it spews oil out the carbeurator/air filter, can’t start without priming it and it’s difficult to start, even when warm. I remember as a boy, not wanting to mow the parents grass, running while pushing the mower to get done as quickly as possible. My mower today dies if I take a full step forward.

All my mowers have been junk. And the “New” doesn’t wear off of anything faster than a lawnmower. Usually with anything new, I pamper it, and try to keep it new. With a lawnmower, it lasts about halfway through the first mow. When the engine dies from the normal yard obstacles, the New is gone.

I was awed by the person mowing and walking at normal speed, it made mowing the yard look easy, instead of the enormous, pain in the ass chore it is for me. Maybe I need another new mower…