The Hazards of Battery-Powered Mowing

The Hazards of Battery-Powered Mowing

By Bobby Neal Winters
We are in the time of year when we will soon begin mowing.  Indeed, my neighbor has started already.  He re-seeds his yard every year and it just explodes in the spring.  This is in contrast to my yard which just looks like something has exploded.
But I try.  Or I try to try. Anyway.
NALM, the National Association of Lawn Mowers, has started an initiative about sustainable mowing.  They are a very “woke” organization.  Not long after COVID 19 got loose upon us they started promoting the fact that while you were mowing you were engaged in the act of social distancing.  Everyone should be much more than six feet away from you.  
I wish I’d taken that more seriously.  Let me explain.
I bought myself a battery-powered mower.  I should say that I had my son-in-law buy me a battery-powered mower.  Well, that’s not exactly right either.  My children are terrified that my wife and I are going to get COVID 19 and die in a paroxysm of agony because we are so old; and they are afraid we are going to give it to their grandmother and take her along with us; as a result of this they won’t let us go to the store.  Therefore, my son-in-law bought me the mower from Home Despot (uh, Depot) and brought it to me.  I then gave him money.
It is a 20-inch Ryobi.  I got a Ryobi because my battery-powered hand tools are Ryobi. It uses the 40 volt 6 Ah lithium batteries.  The 40 volt is how strong it is; the 6 Ah is how long it will last.  It came with one battery and I have since bought another online.  Let me say that most of the cost is in the battery.
Before I go any further, let me say I’d been thinking about this for a couple of years now, and the tipping point was the fact you don’t have to jerk on them to start.  Press a button and mow.
Anyway, I’d gotten this and I was pretty anxious to try it out, but my lawn is not tall enough yet.  Then I saw that the boundary between my yard and my neighbor’s was kind of tall.  Well, I said to myself, let’s give this a little five-minute tryout.
That, I maintain, was a good idea.  It was the next thing that was a mistake.
I invited my wife along so she could see it too.  
I pressed the button and started it up. I made a run along the edge of my driveway.  I then mowed the edge of my garage.  In that one sentence lay the problem.  Along the edge of my garage I’ve been...storing...some leftover fencing material.  I’ve been storing it there for the last twenty years. You never know when you might need it.  Lest any of you are afraid that I mowed over it and destroyed my mower, put those thoughts out of your head right now.  The mower is still safe.  
But...
My wife saw the pile of fencing material.  
“You know,” she said, “I’m making a pile of scrap metal for the parquet scavengers.  Why don’t we move that there?”
“Sure,” I said.  I suddenly found myself in a rendition of “If you give a mouse a cookie.”
As I mentioned, that pile had been there for twenty years.  It was chain-link fence and small trees had grown up through it. It took pliers, hacksaws, shovels, adzes, angle-grinders, and two hours to move that pile. During the course of doing this, we were attacked by a very aggressive and possibly venomous snake.
That was yesterday morning.  It rained in the night, and you can’t even tell I mowed that strip of grass.
I’ll be needing to recharge my battery.
Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. )