??? Seriously , might want to rethink that statement.
When I was a teenager, I was mowing a two acre yard for a homeowner who was out of town and selling the property. He had a self propelled Homko 21" mower. The mower kept giving me problems in that the drive mechanism kept breaking. After hauling it to the repair shop s couple of times and still having the same problem, I took our 21" LawnBoy push mower to the job. That was back in the days when the LawnBoy had a magnesium deck and a two stroke engine and was very easy to push. I could do that two acre job in less time with the LawnBoy push mower than I could with the self propelled Homko mower. Iāll admit that I moved faster back then than I do now.
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Is that 2 acres of lawn or 2 acres of property? My property is 4 acresā¦but I have 1 acre of lawn. 2 acres of lawn is about 1.5 football fields.
Mike, It was two full acres. It took most of the day to mow the property. This was back in 1958. I got 60Ā¢ an hour. I did charge more when I had to bring my own mower.
Riding mowers werenāt really common back then and neither were jobs, especially for teenagers. The country was in a recession and it hit my area hard as we had several large auto parts factories. I did have a half day job in the college AV department running film projectors and other AV equipment. Afternoons I mowed yards. Sometimes the AV department would call me in for special events to run the PA system or show a film. The pay was set at 60Ā¢ an hour.
When I think about the LawnBoy mower and its fuel requirements back then, it was 1/2 pint of 30 weight non detergent oil to a gallon of regular gas. The gasoline was leaded back thenānone of this ethanol stuff.
In defense (defence) in metro areas the actual lawns can be quite small, like somewhere around a couple thousand square feet of actual grass. So thatās not a problem with non-propelled, battery, or even corded. But when you start to get beyond that, you can have fairly large expanses of grass that needs cutting every 5-7 days. So ya just match the equipment to the job. Spending over an hour per time, you need a bigger machine.
And you bought those flimsy excuses? Softy. 
Iāll bet it did. I spend enough time with my 48" cut mowing my 1 acre.
I had a lawn mowing job when I was 12. But at the time I lived in the city where a LARGE lot was 1/4 acre. And have the lot was home/garage and driveway.
@jtsanders. A year ago last February, Mrs. Triedaq fell on the ice and broke the bone just above the ankle. I bought a knee scooter for her to get around the house. When Mrs. Triedaq would use the knee scooter to get around the house, neither I nor the dog or cat was safe. She could have won the Indy 500 as fast as she moved on that thing. I gladly do the mowing to keep her off that thing.
Sheās lucky to have you around, and you are lucky to have her to keep you straight. A match to emulate.
@MikeInNH. I canāt imagine doing the physical labor that I did when I was younger. However, when I first started teaching at a university in 1965, I couldnāt imagine all that is required of new faculty today if they are to get tenure. Our son is on the faculty at a university in another state. He had a three bedroom house about 35 minutes from campus. He sold the house and bought and bought a two bedroom condo 5 minutes from his office. His daughter has one bedroom, he and his wife have the other bedroom. He doesnāt maintain an office at his residence; he just walks over to his office on campus. He gains an hour a day not having to commute to work and doesnāt have to maintain a lawn.
In university environments today, you either publish and bring in grants or you are gone.
I know 3 college professors, and none are full time. Most college teaching positions are part time. One guy I know tries to teach a couple classes at Harvard, Boston University and Boston College every semester. If he was a tenured professor at BC teaching that many classes his salary would be 6 figures. But because heās part timeā¦itās more like $40,000/yr. And thatās if he can teach 6 classes a semester. Sometimes itās only 4. 6 classes a semester means at least 70 hours of work/week (classes, homework and exam grading).
The dirty secret at the heart of many ātopā universitiesā¦
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Back when I was much, much younger and bought my first house, I had visions of growing up using an old 2 stroke lawnboy to mow an acre. My first house had an acre of lawn as well and a fairly steep slope corner to corner. I bought a nice push mower thinking it would be great exercise. That lasted two weekends. I bought a 12hp riding lawn tractor for the third mowā¦ Fast forward, Iām mowing about 2.5 acres and not long ago bought a 54" 24hp tractor so it only takes me a little over an hour. Time is something I canāt get back or more of unless I maximize itā¦
@MikeInNH. I have a real problem with part time positions. Part time professors are not able to become part of the institution. To me, itās not just a matter of teaching a class, but how do I interrelate the class with other areas. For instance, one colleague I had known from my elementary school days was a professor in the Department of Industry and Technology which was housed in a different college. We were talking over coffee one morning and realized that much of the content he was teaching in one of his courses overlapped what I was teaching in a course. My course happened to be an applied computer hardware course. We team taught the course. I was able to add a lab component and he was able to add a second lecture component that tied computer hardware to software applications. The students in Industry and Technology received credit in their discipline and my students received credit in computer science. Another colleague, who was a trumpet player, was a professor in the physics department. We had great discussions on our 15 mile trip each way to band practice each week. We developed a computer hardware option in computer science where our students took some coursework in electronics taught in the physics department. Sadly, both of my colleagues are deceased and our programs ended.
What I am saying is that, in my opinion, there should be much more interdisciplinary work in colleges and universities. This wonāt happen when the institutions just hire part time faculty just to teach courses.
My yard is only 75ā x 110ā so isnāt large. But with the steep slope and going around multiple trees it takes me about 45 minutes mowing time. I have the mower set on mulch so no wrestling with bagged clippings.
These days I tend to mow one day then edge and trim another day. Wrestling the extension cords ends up as tiring and more painful than mowing.
Yeah same here 9 years ago but the surgeon would not allow using it so it was wheelchair and crutches. It was a month before I could leave the house for more than a half hour.
All this talk about mowers and kids and lack of riding mowers back then brought an image back. This was the 50ās but I remember the mower that the park department used to use to mow the parks. It was a great big reel riding mower. Multiple reels, probably 5 feet wide all together with several rows of reels and the guy sitting on a seat in the middle of it all. Then later on I think they added the same kind of contraption but pulled by a Jeep. Neighborās kidās dad used to do the mowing and we were impressed with his parks department badge. So then I guess along came the rotary mowers and zero turns. (Same thing with snow blowers. Only one guy had one and he worked at the John Deere dealer.) Life is great.
Yes. I apologized to Marnet for ignoring those people that are not physically able to do the yardwork that I am still able to do.
But the sentiment remains, and Iām not talking about the people who have 2 acres to mow. For the average homeowner, do we really need a lawnmower that pulls us around the yard for an hour? We canāt just go and push the thing around?
@Marnet. I really appreciate a battery powered string trimmer. I donāt like having to deal with extension cords. I am sure you can buy a battery powered string trimmer for under $100.
One outdoor job I didnāt like was cleaning the eaves troughs. In the back of the house, I would have to stand on the one story section with my leaf blower with extension tubes to clean the gutters on the upper level. In the front of the house, I would get up on a ladder. One person on the service crew at the university where I worked was helping the widow across the street. He saw me up on the ladder, stopped his car, got out and told me at my age I had no business being up on a ladder. It then became difficult to clean out the eaves troughs. Mrs. Triedaq would stand at lookout and if we saw the fellow from the service crew coming down the street, she would yell and I would scramble down the ladder and hide the ladder in the bushes. That became so difficult that I had new, bigger eaves troughs installed with leaf guards. Iāve sent copies of the invoice for this work to my friend on the service staff, but he has never paid up. Not having to clean the leaves out of the gutters was really worth the price.
Life is too short to not have conveniences to make household chores easier.
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Iām thinking of getting a battery operated string trimmer when I find what I want on sale.
I hate gutters and held off for 20 years but finally put some on. I should have looked at the bid a little better but I went for the leaf protectors too because I donāt want to ever clean those dang things. I think all in all they were about $20 a foot. They did a nice job, but still I think they saw me coming.