My New Worx Intellicut...

has arrived.  And I am soooo excited!  For I mow lawns for a living.  Among many other things, certainly.  I consider myself a bit of a renaissance woman.  As a landscape designer, life circumstances highly encouraged me to consider my clients' urgings to offer a maintenance service to accompany my installed landscape designs.  And when I found that it is oh so difficult to hire a prince gardener on a budget, I was thrown into the additional professional role as Botany of Design's head gardener.

Whew!  For years as I studied and worked in Landscape Architecture, I urged my friends and family who had no idea of what a Landscape Architect is that, "I (emphatically) am not a gardener."  And now, well, I suppose I am a gardener (she says as she shrugs her very petite shoulders).

Ok, I can do this.  I've a big white American truck at my disposal.  Check!  I've gone out and purchased all the tools, a small investment since I already had the bohemoth lawn mower (which I was already used to pushing around), and the only other power tool I included in my entourage was a backpack blower (which I love, by the way).  Check!  Gas and oil mixtures.  Check!  Clients.  Check!  Service lists, routes, notes and camera.  Check!

Ok, I'm ready to go!  Hmmm, how do I get this lawnmower in to the truck?  Well, after spending days watching actual gardeners' techniques and trying many of my own, I finally settled into hoisting the 70 pound monster onto its rear wheels and rolling its front wheels from the tip of the bed on back.  Sounds easy enough... but it wasn't.  Not to mention getting the mower back out again.

A few years later, I've settled into my gardening chores with a mix of dread, but true love.  It gives me so much time to think, I get to touch the dirt (which I love), I see the stages beyond planting and the evolution of my gardens, I learn so much more about my plants and my little created ecosystems, and it gets me out of my office.  One day, I'm in my dress and heels and the next I'm tired and dirty, hoisting around lawnmowers.  I've found my equilibrium and for now settled in with my gardener(ish) fate.

But my dreams of a lawnmower that I can actually pick up and (perhaps) fit in the back of my Volvo Cross Country abided.  Until now, for I think I may have found my ideal mower!  I never could have found such a silly little machine in a big muscular warehouse store, so, alas, I was obliged to take a chance on site unseen through the web.  The reviews were mixed, but mostly good.  And when  I kept seeing the words "small" and "toy" pop up, I thought, "this is the mower for me!"  So I snapped it up; and indeed, it is small and my 4 year old son could push it as a toy.  It has earned some points.  But the true test will come on the (battle) fields as I push it across the green locks of my gardens.  Will it cut?  The jury, of course, is still out.  But, indeed, I shall update...

Awww, isn't she cute?