Yeah, that’s right… I bought a push mower… no, not a gas mower without automatic drive, a push “reel” mower. My mower broke down last summer and I managed to limp through borrowing from neighbors and paying people to mow my lawn. Let’s take a look at my options…

1 – I could spend about $300 and buy a new gas mower – investing a large sum of money in something that will never appreciate in value – contributing to noise and air pollution – increasing my dependency on fossil fuels while contributing to their depletion… etc. etc.

2 – I could spend about $500 and buy a new electric mower – investing an even larger sum of money in something that will never appreciate in value – getting warm fuzzies knowing that I am not polluting or using fossil fuels.

3 – I could spend $80 and buy a new push reel mower – investing much less in something that will never appreciate in value – forcing myself to get exercise when I mow – getting warm fuzzies… yada yada yada…

4 – I could pay a crew to mow my lawn $20 a week and never worry about it – investing MUCH more than even the most expensive mower in something that will never appreciate in value – contributing to green house gasses etc. etc. etc. This is really probably the worst option.

I opted for #3 and after the first mowing, all I can say is WHOA! That was definitely a good workout. It wasn’t that is was so much harder than pushing around a much heavier gas mower, it was the fact that there is no momentum. It is a more constant effort – when you stop pushing, it stops. It doesn’t roll to a stop… it STOPS! It doesn’t even roll by itself on the downhill…

…I originally stopped mowing my own lawn when I decided that my time could be better spent “cutting deals” and “doing biz,” well, I think that for the exercise value alone this was a good purchase.