Trina Machacek: A snickerdoodle revelation

My lawn gets mowed every week of summer without fail or I would have to hire the sheep living in the corrals half a mile to the west to be able to get out of my front door.

Of course it’s a task. Just like doing the wash, changing the oil in the truck, grocery shopping or even, aarrgghh spraying weeds.

So what do you do when a task changes the way you think?

I was mowing yesterday. Yes, I have a riding mower. I have a grand yard that was designed with a very long rope and a very long tape measure, the grass was planted from seed as were all the trees.

Yes my riding mower makes it look easy to keep my yard up to snuff. To some degree it is. It is still a task though. I still water with hoses and sprinklers so they need to be picked up then reset after the mow. Along with picking up all the do dahs that I have out and about that adds to me enjoying my yard.

There is still maintenance of my mower and raking and trimming and fertilizing and all things lawn caring, so just because I sit as I mow it’s still a weekly summer task. But. Yes a green grass stained “but.” But all that aside something yesterday caught my eye and I thought, I’m gonna ask around and see if this thing that happened to me has ever been noticed by anyone else who is the mower of their lawns.

It seems to me that my lawn mower mows much better in reverse. Yes in reverse. Now when I said that out loud around a table there were snickers. No not the good chocolate and caramel with peanuts snickers. Just guffaw little snickers which soon turned to outright laughter. So let me explain how I came about this newest revelation of mine.

I have some trees that need to be mowed around and it takes going forward and backward to get close to the trees. The closer you can get the less trimming will need to be done. As in all things chore related, less is always more!

Mowing around this one tree that has decided to push its roots up around the base I need to back up to go around the roots as to not damage them. Well today for some reason I zipped up and over the pokey up gnarly things and got too close to the tree to go forward any more. So I grabbed the forward backward handle thingy and backed up. That’s when I saw it. That’s when this whole snickerdoodle revelation came to light.

As I backed up the grass sort of stood up at attention and got an amazing haircut. It was clean and straight and all green and pretty. Not just that fresh mowed lawn look. No, this was like a freshly coming out of the barber shop cut.

I know, I know. Snicker if you must. There is, I am sure, some way to explain it. I know it has to have something to do with blade rotation and air currents and force and drag and stuff. But to me it was just kinda cool. So cool in fact that I tried it on the next tree and voila clean again. Oh but the cleanliness of the cut around the trees wasn’t the end of the story.

The mowing continued and I was very pleased with this new trick. So much so that I thought about it more as I continued to mow and I missed this one spot that for some reason always grows taller than the rest of the lawn. So I backed up to catch that spot and… Now you’re getting ahead of me here. HAHA Yes as I backed up the longer grass that usually gets mashed down as I drive over it was actually cut to perfection.

So two things. First. I am not going to mow my entire lawn going backward. That would just be silly and neck straining. I will use this little trick to get some spots that need to be barbered into looking good though. And two. Does this work with a walk behind mower? I’m wondering. If you know someone who mows their regular sized lawn with a mower, or you mow yours give it a try and feel free to share your snickerdoodle revelation around a table. Or even with me because there’s no way I will be giving up my ride. Come on I’m not that crazy. Happy revelations.

Trina lives in Eureka, Nevada. Find her on Facebook, Instagram or at itybytrina@yahoo.com