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Mowing the Lawn

I don't reference my first paying job on my résumé. As a 12-year-old, I got paid $5 to mow my family's acre-and-a-half yard. I could earn extra money by squatting on my haunches and using hand clippers to shear the grass around the shrubs.

Even though the Weed Eater was invented in 1972, my family wasn't one of the backyard enthusiasts who contributed to the $80 billion sales this gadget earned by 1977. Obviously, there were many other people who were sick and tired of an aching back, blistered fingers, or disfigured and cramped hands. Today, a pair of clippers costs about $25, but weed whackers only start at $30 and can be purchased in a plethora of price points, up to around $300.

Since that time, I've witnessed people keeping the grass short by hand all over the world. At my university in China, the grass around Chairman Mao's statute was cut with hand scissors, before he was cut down, too. But that's pretty much the only grass one could find on campus since the rest of the place was dirt or paved.

In other places, I've watched gardeners use long knives to tidy the grass. This multipurpose tool works well to keep the hedges in check and prune trees-and, during a break, the gardener can turn fisherman and spear a nice snapper for dinner.

When I lived in Delaware, only a small patch of grass surrounded my home, so I decided to be very cool, very eco-friendly, and very cheap: I bought a human-powered push mower. I paid around $80, which is about what they cost today. It came in a box marked, "Assembly required." I had a hammer and a screwdriver. How hard could it be?

I got my lean, green (literally) mowing machine up and running (that's me running behind it, getting exercise) in an hour. I got two rows completed when the handle just fell off. I spent the next hour parting the grass like a chicken foraging for bugs, searching for the screw that had fallen off. Then I gave up.

Before I could replace the screw, a week had gone by and the grass grew to higher than a foot. Finding it impossible to push the flimsy machine through the thick, lush jungle of my back yard, I hired a lawn service for the rest of the summer. It was too hot and humid to mow the lawn anyway. I paid $20, but that was with the discount I asked for, and got, for getting the neighbors on both sides of me to hire the same guy.

During a safari to Kenya's Masai Mara, the camp served lunch on a gorgeous green lawn. Only coming within a couple of feet of my table, and never begging for scraps, a crew of warthogs chomped on the grass. All day long they labored, efficiently and quietly, never disturbing the guests. They trimmed around the pool area and in front of my tent, too.

While it might be a challenge to find a family of warthogs in Connecticut, there are goats. My father once purchased a goat, with grandiose ideas about milk, chèvre, and a free lawn service. But the (male) goat didn't produce milk and he had a bigger appetite for delicate shrubs and pretty flowers and wasn't so keen on the grass and dandelion salad that was to be his fare. (Not even goats like to diet.)

Cows, sheep, chickens, and guinea pigs like munching on grass. According to Gizmodo.com, it takes about 10 goats, two cows, or a small army of 523 guinea pigs to keep about a third of an acre in check. Use the site's online calculator to find out how many creatures you need to get the job done. There is the added bonus that the animals feed themselves, come with free fertilizer, and might produce meat, milk, or eggs.

There's also a local teen who might be persuaded, for the right price, to cut the grass. An 18-year-old once asked me for a lawn mowing job. Sure. He could start right away. I had a full can of gas and I knew it took less than an hour to push my magnificent Honda around the property. I offered to pay him $35, but, no, he wasn't interested.

"How much to mow this little patch right here?" he asked. "I only need $5 for cigarettes."

So, when he asked me for a reference letter for a job he applied for, I said, "How about I give you a stamp?"

I love the smell of freshly-cut grass and I find the hum of lawn mowers oddly nostalgic, but whether you cut your own grass or hire someone else, there's times when the best weed whacker comes at the end of the day in a refreshing drink form.

Naomi Migliacci is an international consultant who enjoys traveling and adventure. She collects friends and bracelets wherever she goes. She lives in Guilford.