12 New Things - Mowing the Lawn!

It's the last Thursday of the month, which means it is check-in time for the 12 New Things Project that I'm participating in along with Sarah Mae over at Like a Warm Cup of Coffee. (For a full list of my planned "new things," please click here.)

As you may remember, due to some inclement weather, I was forced to flip-flop my August and September tasks. While this month was originally scheduled to be pie-making, I did that in August and learned how to use the lawn mower this month. (Our string trimmer isn't working properly, so learning to use that will have to wait until we can figure out the problem.) What follows is photographic evidence of my lawn mowing adventure!

Before I go any further, I do have to point out that our lawn looks pretty yucky in these pictures. We had gone for almost 3 weeks without a drop of rain, so there were a lot of dry spots. (Having grown up in upstate New York with a large lawn, watering the lawn in the summer was never an option. You got used to the fact that your lawn would be a bit brown, but it would perk right back up after a good rain. I guess old habits die hard, because even though our lawn is much smaller now, I can't bring myself to use a sprinkler.) Unfortunately, in the midst of all the dry, brown spots, there were also some spots that did continue to grow, so the lawn needed to be cut, even if it doesn't look like it in these pictures.

Carey showing me how to check the fluids.


Mowing the backyard.


Carey taking my picture from our back deck - Kristen, the aerial view...


Mowing the front yard.


My final pass in the front yard!


Thank goodness my visor is shading my face. It was hot, and I was very sweaty by the time I finished this adventure!

Overall, I'm glad that I finally learned how to start and run the lawn mower. I think that my skills could be honed with more practice, and I've told Carey that I'd be glad to help out more with lawn care in the future. Performing this task myself made me truly appreciate how hard Carey works to keep the outside of our home looking its best. I think, in terms of lawn mowing at least, that Carey will be our starting quarterback and I'll be second string... ;-)

Please stop by Sarah Mae's blog to see what tasks other ladies have chosen to perform. And feel free to join in - it's never too late to learn something new!