Commentary
For a beautiful lawn, forget the horses and get the horsepower
By Mark W. Mayfield
Today's column is for every man who doesn't have a lawn tractor, sometimes called a "riding lawnmower." Please listen to me, my weary, grass-stained friend, because I feel your pain. Before becoming the proud owner of a lawn tractor, I, too, foolishly wasted my Sunday afternoons with a wimpy 5-horsepower push mower that completely drained the leg strength I was saving to walk to the refrigerator during commercials in the football game. Then one day I realized that a lawn tractor with a 42-inch cutting path would mow grass twice as fast as my stupid push mower, which had only a 21-inch cutting path. And since lawn tractors require no pushing, I'd have plenty of leftover leg strength for those important trips to the refrigerator.
Of course, I didn't immediately rush out and buy a lawn tractor. First, I asked myself these important questions:
1. Could I afford a lawn tractor? (Answer: No, but that's why I have credit cards.)
2. Would my wife approve of my buying a lawn tractor? (Answer: Probably not, so I'll tell her that it was a gift from a good friend who can't use it anymore because he suffers from a rare medical condition that causes unbearable posterior pain during prolonged contact with a lawn tractor seat.)
3. What would I say if my wife asked me for the name of that "good friend"? (Answer: I'll make up a name, like Billy-Bob Sorebutt.)
4. Would my wife believe such a blatant lie? (Answer: No way.)
5. Would God punish me for lying by causing me to experience unbearable posterior pain? (Answer: Maybe, but a sore butt is a small price to pay for extra leg strength during football games.)
6. Would a shiny new lawn tractor make me feel special, and make my friends and neighbors jealous? (Answer: Yes!)
7. Since the answer to question No. 6 is "yes," and since I don't really care about the answers to the other five questions, shouldn't I now rush out and buy a lawn tractor? (Answer: Yes! Yes! Yes!)
My lawn tractor is a beauty. It has a 42-inch cutting path and an advanced mulching system that chops grass clippings into itsy-bitsy green molecules that are deposited back into the soil to provide important nutrients for the young weeds that make up most of my lawn. And it has a powerful 15.5-horsepower engine that doesn't mind when I run over sprinkler heads, rocks and misplaced skateboards.
And speaking of horsepower, I'm very concerned about the growing number of misguided homeowners who hire real horses to mow their lawns. This may sound like a wise, low-cost alternative to buying a lawn tractor, especially when the horses promise to do a good job and provide a long list of references, but here's why you should "just say nay" to Mr. Ed's Gardening Service: A horse's teeth, which produce a meager 4-inch cutting path, mow grass very unevenly, and a horse's primitive mulching system is slow and messy. Besides, horses are lousy gardeners who are interested in only one thing: eating your lawn down to the dirt.
A few years ago, my wife's two horses, sometimes called "nature's riding lawnmowers," escaped from their enclosure, sometimes called "the corral," and entered our backyard, sometimes called "our backyard." An hour later, after the horses had illegally mowed most of the brand new lawn and dropped several piles of mulch by the patio, a very angry man, sometimes called "me," discovered the horrifying scene. When I confronted the trespassing horses, they immediately stopped mowing, probably because they'd never seen a grown man cry, scream, curse, hyperventilate and step in a pile of mulch all at the same time. They quickly apologized and locked themselves in their stalls, but my damaged lawn didn't recover for weeks. I learned a valuable lesson on that fateful day, and I want to share that lesson with you: Horse mulch doesn't stick to bare feet like dog mulch does, but it feels really, really icky.
So, my fellow mowing men, if you want a lawn that looks like a million bucks, forget the horses and get yourself a good lawn tractor. And just for fun, ask your wife if she'll let you ride it from the couch to the refrigerator during football games.
Mark W. Mayfield (markmayfield@mindspring.com) hopes readers weren't offended by his graphic description of "horse mulch."
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
