Home and Garden:

Last Friday morning, after several days of research into my choices, I ordered a new Ariens Mini Zoom 1540 riding lawn mower from Lawn & Leisure of Sterling, VA. Joel at Lawn & Leisure was very helpful and applied no high pressure sales tactics. Buying any riding, rotary mower was hard for me to do. I wanted to do something more environmentally friendly, but I have about 2 acres of yard to mow regularly, and though I can mow it all with a manual reel push mower (did it last weekend, took 9 hours over three days), I want to get it done much faster. I've been using the ancient Sears Craftsman 4hp 22" self propelled walk behind we bought used in 1996, but it is literally falling to pieces (one of the drive wheels has been broken for years, but now a second wheel is falling off and it leaks gas). That mower was taking me around 5 hours to do the whole 2 acres, again not exactly timely.

I looked at and almost ordered a Quick 36 Fox (36" self-propelled walk behind), but Erci pointed out that at roughly $2000 she'd be happier if whatever mower we bought could do a few other things, such as tow a cart or spreader. She is of course, correct - but that Quick 36 does look like an excellent choice for people who need to mow 1-3 acres of hilly ground with lots of obstructions and no need to tow a cart around.

We considered a John Deere L 100 series lawn tractor, which also looks like a pretty good deal. The theory is that we'll be able to mow the lawn in half the time with the zero turn from Ariens though, and time is precious.

I plan to further cut the time down by buying a small Pro Mow gang of reels to tow behind the rider. The reels do a better job of cutting grass than any rotary mower would, and the wide swath will allow us to cut in just a few sweeps and with less gas than the normal deck, which will still be available just in case the weeds take over (weeds are tough on reel mowers).

I wish someone made a small gang of perhaps 3 reels I could push around by hand, that would have made the rider unessential. I really like the little 18" Brill Lexus 38 I have (and intend to still use it inside our fence (about 1/10th of an acre). It is quiet, clean, easy, and cuts beautifully... it is just too small to tackle the big field with.

Looking forward to playing with the Ariens when it arrives.