Frank J. Buchman

Cowboy • Horseman • Writer

Lawn Mowing Is Sign Of The Promised Season

“Who’s gonna mow your grass?”

Buck Owens asked that question four decades ago in his hit recording. Oddly, we can still remember the first time we heard the song on the radio as we were draggin’ Main, waiting on Mom to figure the daily books at the grocery store. We didn’t see it as a chart topper, despite personal appeal, but we were wrong, and it’s now a favored classic.

That song title comes to mind, when the lawn grows so fast one can almost see it happen.  We do wonder who’s going to mow the grass. It probably won’t be us, because there’s always “horses to ride,” but our wife and daughter are good about doing the job. We have helped, but are so hard on the mower that they prefer to just do it themselves.

Big job it is, too, with not only a sizeable ranch yard, but for some reason we like to keep the highway frontage groomed nicely as well. That’s something which has been with us since our teenage days; we are attracted to ranches with manicured lawns and white fences. We did our best on the two-acre Frankie’s Miniature Ranch in the ’60s.

Still, lawn mowing has been a big, but typically enjoyable summer task for us ever since we can remember. First off, we had one of those wheel-driven push mowers, which made the job plenty hard for a grade schooler, but we always wanted to help. One specific mowing required in the ’50s was cemetery plots.

Several small cemeteries did not have regular mowing crews in those days, and if one wanted a loved one’s lot mowed, it had to be done personally. Our memory fails us on how often we’d do Grandpa Frank’s, who passed away in 1921, but we always did it before Memorial Day, and some other times during the summer.

Seems as though we had one of the first power mowers in our town block, and it was an electric one. As would be the guess, we ran over the cord and cut it in two; Dad was mad. When we got a gas-motor mower, it was much easier to mow the lawn at home, but we sure put that 20-inch mower to the test with all of the weeds and ditches at the ranch.

Our fiancé liked to mow too; we’re more thankful now, than even then. She was helping mow some rugged perimeter at the ranch, when the mower slipped and cut and broke her toe. To make it worse, she was Maid of Honor in a wedding the next day. We’re really lucky she went ahead and married us later that summer anyway.

With no mechanical skills, we were still required to take a college small engine class, and took our family lawn mower in to repair. We had to disassemble the engine, do as told to fix it and put all the parts back in place. With help, we got the mower together, and it started. But it wouldn’t run the next time, or ever again; at least not quite right.

Riding lawn mowers are now used by even those with little lawns that really don’t need them. Our acreage, with all of the horse tracks, is especially hard on riding mowers, requiring replacement every couple of years. Now the mowing crew has figured it out; they use a tractor with a six-foot mower, and the results are just as good and lots easier.

More than beautiful lawns are promised in Second Samuel 23:4: “He shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.” Reassurance is in Psalm 72:6: “He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth.”

+++ALLELUIA+++

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