Our gas-powered lawn mower is on summer vacation. It needs repaired and we haven’t had a chance to take care of it yet. Luckily, our house came with an old electric mower. We nearly got rid of it when we bought the place, but since it worked we decided to keep it. (This was before my current aversion to acquiring any new possessions set in.)
So, we’re glad to have it now. It certainly is better than nothing. It does have a few quirks, though…
–Mild, pinprick shocks occasionally delivered to the operator.
–The constant possibility of running over the cord. (Yep, it’s a plug-in.)
–It does a relatively crappy job.
I shouldn’t complain; Mr. Green Scene is the one who actually mowed our whole lawn with this thing, extension cords and all. As the one who sat in the house listening to the lawn being mowed, I can report that the electric mower is technically quieter than the gas-powered variety. One might think that would be good news on the noise pollution front, but the sound that it does make is whiny and intermittent, rather than throaty and all-American like the gas guzzler.
For us, this is an emergency measure only. Our yard is too big to deal with this every week. (We are, of course, involved in a long-term strategy of replacing lawn with veggie garden.) But I wondered about folks with small city yards. Do any of y’all use electric mowers? Or the mechanical type? And how does it work for you?