One of the few nice things about living in an apartment for me was the fact that I didn’t have to deal with any lawn or yard maintenance. The rental company was supposed to, and usually did, take care of that kind of thing. But now I’m a homeowner, and I have a lot more yard than I ever thought I would.
Last year, I figured I could just trim what grass I wanted to around my house, but I have now learned better. The company insuring my home insists that I need to maintain a yard out 100 feet from the dwelling to reduce the fire hazard. I hadn’t considered the fire factor, and so while I think the communication from said insurance company was sorely lacking, I agree that I should keep that grass down. I mean, there was a fire last year within sight of my dwelling caused by a lightning strike on a nearly cloudless day. I don’t want my house to burn down!
And, although the mowing is difficult, we purchased a mower that can handle the terrain. I didn’t really know the best way to mow terrain, but, after watching me do it the hard way a couple of times, Ambrose was eventually able to explain to me that I could move the mower more easily if I gently switchback my way down a slope rather than dragging the mower up and down it. Literally dragging it behind me, since that’s a more powerful position for me to move.
Mowing is basically a 50 pound sled pull/drag exercise, and it incentivizes me to start picking rocks up from within the 100 foot zone to make mowing a little bit easier. Long term, I’d like to be able to flatten out some of the sections that are deeply rutted by hoofprints from the cows that used to live here.
My husband and I are working on taking down all the internal fencing from the yard. This will also help make mowing easier, but the main reason to do it is that we aren’t going to have any animals for a while, if at all. And if we do ever want to get animals, we’ll want to build out structures at that time to make sure they’re done the way we want them to be done.
It’s wonderful to be able to go out into my yard and get a lot of exercise. It’s a lot of lawn to mow, but I’d rather put time into mowing now for the safety of having cleared grass in the summer to come. And it will get easier to do the mowing as we continue to maintain it. It’s a small price to pay for being a homeowner.