There has been mowage

And mo’ and mo’ mowage.  Although it took most of the weekend, the yard at The Old Gray House is now beaten back (much of the grass was, literally, waist-high, and there were huge mats of bedstraw, AKA “sticky Willie”).  The only part remaining un-clipped is a five-by-thirty strip of the east curb line, and it can wait until Monday or something.

I feel like I’ve been beaten with sticks, because I had to do all the work with a “self-propelled” mower whose transmission linkage is partially frozen, so I had to fight the gearbox every step of the way.  Transmission cabling has been ordered, but won’t be here until Wednesday or Thursday, at which point I’ll have to install it and then see if I can free up the actuator arm.  If I can’t, I foresee that this thing’s gonna last about one season, and then I’m gonna look for one of those “trade in your polluting gas mower for an electric!” deals, since L wants an electric anyway.

There’s also a huge pile of clippings on the front walk that will have to be shoveled up and taken to the compost pen in the back yard.  The grass-catcher bag filled up every two or three turns, and I was wasting a huge amount of time walking the bag to the back to empty it each time.