The Brewster

Well...I bit the bullet and decided to plant roots here in Mankato by buying a house. We previously sold our house in western Nebraska last October after 5 years of renting it out, so have been contemplating on potentially buying one here as the market is very quick and housing prices have been growing 10% per year for the past 5 years. We close on the 14th(next Tuesday) and move on the 15th.

Anyways...long story short, I also bought a riding lawn mower because now I will have to mow my own lawn rather than watching my landlord do it from the deck of my house.

It's my first riding lawn mower and it is not a zero turn mower. It's essentially a red lawn mower very similar to the one Hank Hill drives on King Of The Hill haha...For those expert lawn mower operators what is the best way to mow the yard? We have a decent sized front yard(one on each side of the house) and will have a fenced in backyard.

My gut instinct tells me to do the following on each section.... a big square on the outside of the yard first in order to turn around. Then do strips across that are as close together as the mower will make the turn. Then carry on and make my way back to the ones I missed???

Looking for suggestions on that along with anything else I should probably be doing to the house or things that would make a cool improvement. For those looking for ideas, below is a link to the house....There is no snow by it any longer haha.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/104- ... 374_zpid/?

I do the square like you suggested and then I mow a different direction each time: North/South then East/West and then angles, etc. Keeps the yard from having "mowing tracks" and it looks better IMO. Congratulations!

I have 1.75 acres that I mow...

Astroturf.

Once you’ve used a zero turn, you never go back...

Here's a "Do My Own Lawncare" series that I found helpful:

Obviously you won't do all that he did, but I found parts of it helpful.

Bumstead wrote: ↑

Mon May 06, 2019 1:17 pm

I do the square like you suggested and then I mow a different direction each time: North/South then East/West and then angles, etc. Keeps the yard from having "mowing tracks" and it looks better IMO. Congratulations!

I have 1.75 acres that I mow...

Thanks! The last thing I want to do is look like an uneducated mower to the new neighbors haha.

I know this will come as a surprise to most GM's on here, but, I don't care what my neighbors think. This is just how I treat my yard so that I am happy with it. I don't get too caught up in it because I have other hobbies for my free time, but I do like my yard to look relatively nice. I have no intention of being the scourge of the neighborhood.

The best way to mow is to not have grass. I hate mowing. If I ever have a yard, I'll never have grass.

The key is having a good minor league system. My kids are ages 16, 13, 6 I should be able to delegate the mowing duties for the next 10-12 years.

handaspencer wrote: ↑

Wed May 08, 2019 2:03 pm

The key is having a good minor league system. My kids are ages 16, 13, 6 I should be able to delegate the mowing duties for the next 10-12 years.

Haha, I have a 7 year old girl and 5 year old boy. I should be delegating mowing duties soon enough but not with a rider.

niles08 wrote: ↑

Wed May 08, 2019 2:10 pm

handaspencer wrote: ↑

Wed May 08, 2019 2:03 pm

The key is having a good minor league system. My kids are ages 16, 13, 6 I should be able to delegate the mowing duties for the next 10-12 years.

Haha, I have a 7 year old girl and 5 year old boy. I should be delegating mowing duties soon enough but not with a rider.

Yea wait a few years on that rider with those ages but think sustained winning its about time to get that 3rd mower in the family to maintain a good system.

I started driving the riding lawnmower at 10, but I may have been an overachiever...

Bumstead wrote: ↑

Wed May 08, 2019 2:19 pm

I started driving the riding lawnmower at 10, but I may have been an overachiever...

It's interesting how things have changed with kids. My grandpa had 2-3 acres and the kids were driving the tractor to mow it by 7 or 8 years old. The were allowed to use knives to help with the cooking. They worked on cars ... and ate paint chips off toys made of lead that were painted with lead and made in a factory insulated with asbestos.

Now, maybe we really are preventing childhood injuries with the way we do things now. I don't know. Bicycle helmets are definitely a good thing. Not having lead poisoning or cancer is also somewhat of a win.

Kids are kids. It’s the parenting that’s changed. Nowadays a large percentage of people aren’t even really parenting their own kids anymore. Daycare and schools are doing it and doing a pretty shitty job...

HAH just do what I do with mine....

find no time to mow. Let yard grow to shin high heights then mow it down as low as possible as to cover your ass for another 2-3 weeks until you have time again. Yeah sure, you have strips of nasty, mowed grass and your yard looks terrible, but hey.... what can you do!? haha

I set Alexa to send me alerts to do such things a mowing the lawn. It's useful and entertaining when company is over and all of a sudden a voice comes out of the fireplace saying, "Yo dummy, get off your ass and mow that grass before buddy calls the HOA on you".