HOME MOW

When it came to lawn maintenance this season, the happy days of summer were far from gay. Even with two fairly big mows at home, they just weren't doing the job. With nearly two acres of grass and little time to manage its growth spurts, we were forced to call upon a team of men with big tools when our push mowers just weren't making the cut. As much as our inner control-freaks resisted, we hired a Gardner this summer to help lower the level of drama at home (90% humidity and two hours behind a lawn mower aren't pretty). While we don't consider ourselves overly-anal, we started noticing the "professionals" weren't as thorough as we were. They were cutting corners to get the job done quickly, hoping we'd be happy with mediocrity...they clearly didn't know who they were dealing with! At $75.00 a week we expected, at the very least, clean cuts. On a typical Sunday afternoon in our second home (Home Depot) we noticed riding lawn mowers on sale (many parts of the country mark down mowers..both push and riding..as the winter months approach so it's a great time to pick one up). After a little price-comparison we found a re-purposed (which means returned WITH warranty) Troy-Bilt riding lawn mower with a Kohler engine (great engine..I knew they made sinks and toilets, but engines??) for HALF OFF at Lowes. We felt like diva's for a second but after adding up the savings (it'll pay for itself in two months and cuts our mowing time in half) we embraced our new boy toy!

TIME TO COMPLETE TASK: 45 minutes

COST: $750.00 at Lowes (http://www.lowes.com/) *even if you don't have a lawn or need a mower this is a great time of year to pick up tools, etc. at home improvement stores!

STRESS LEVEL: No pain in our grass: LOW