May 25, 2004 4 min read

It’s only taken me three years to figure it out. More than 20 years ago I lived in a house that had six acres of land surrounding it. Nearly all of it was in grass. So I pared all that green using a heavy, durable, gasoline-powered tractor with a 42-inch cutting deck.

The next house had about two acres, again mostly grass, only this time large oak trees peppered the landscape. I used a smaller gasoline-powered lawn tractor to keep the growth from overcoming us.

And in both instances I employed a small gasoline powered push mower to trim all those odd and uneven edges.

When my lovely wife and I downsized a little more than three years ago we found ourselves with a lovely little yard of richly growing grass, peonies, holly bushes and other assorted flora. One of the things that came with the house was an electric lawnmower.

The idea of cutting the grass with an electric mower appealed to me. No gasoline to store in the garage. No oil to change, which also meant I wouldn’t have to wait for some recycling drive to get rid of the old oil. No nasty burned gasoline fumes. No pollution. And no noise. I have likely spent weeks of my life listening to the hammering of an internal combustion engine.

Of course in paradise there was the serpent. In my case, it’s the extension cord I need to power the electric mower. Having used an electric weed eater before without slicing through the extension cord, I said to myself, “How hard can it be to use a mower with an extension cord?’

Well, after three seasons of tripping over it, getting it tangled in the holly bush, having it catch on the corner of the aluminum siding, wrapping it around myself to avoid dismembering it or me, I realize it is pretty tough, even with a postage-stamp size yard like ours.

Of course, I have been attempting to cut the yard with this device in the conventional way. I cut a path and, when I reach the end of it, I turn the mower and cut a parallel path in the opposite direction.

In the process the extension cord usually has to be moved with each pass.

I tried to solve the problem by buying one of the old-fashioned reel mowers that has no engine other than you and your muscle. It works well but for a yard speckled with bumps and lumps, it really doesn’t do the best job.

Rummaging around in a drawer recently, I found the manual that came with the electric mower. Maybe after three years, I thought, I should read it because it might just offer a helpful suggestion.

It did.

I also learned what the “flip lever’ does. It’s really very simple. You start off from the power supply, mow a path and then pull the flip lever, which allows you move the handle from front to back. You don’t turn the cutting deck. Then you mow another path, pull the flip lever and continue. The cord lays nicely on the grass you have already cut. There is no tripping, no bending, no wrapping it around holly or trees, etc.

This system works, although it contradicts that I was taught when cutting grass you always moved forward over the uncut stuff, never backwards because you wouldn’t get an even cut.

Essentially, with the electric mower, that’s what I am doing. Yet, the cut looks fine to me. Nothing is perfect, however, and neither is our yard. I still have to get into some odd places and that cord becomes just as nasty as a rattlesnake, coiling and sliding along and making a very great nuisance of itself.

The instructions on how to cut might be fine for a perfectly square yard. But if you can show me a patch of grass that doesn’t have some odd hook or curve to it, I’ll happily introduce you to some little green men from Mars.

Even though the recommended method works better than what I have been doing for the past three years, I’m still dragging about 75 feet of heavy extension cord through the yard and I’m still having to pay special attention that I don’t run it over with the mower.

While the advertisements declaring rock bottom prices for gasoline powered lawnmowers have been very tempting, I still like the idea of being environmentally friendly. So, for the time being, I’ll keep using the mower and cord. At least I will until I electrocute myself. Of course then I won’t have to worry about cutting the grass.

Have a good day.

Jim Pletcher is the Herald-Standard’s business editor. E-mail: jpletcher@heraldstandard.com.