Man Toy

When I say Man-Toy, what is the first thing that comes to mind? I have a diverse reader group so that would be a fun list to guess.

In England, there are a lot of lawns to mow. Ours at the Lilacs could easily be mowed twice a week, probably three when it is raining a lot. When we first moved in, we had a lot of upfront expense, so I thought a good way to save a lot of coin would be to get one of those nice little rotary motors (a Qualcast Panther 30) You know, the ones that the blade spins when you make the wheels move; no other source of power besides your left and right leg.

Then we discovered that our lawn grows fast. And thick. And it rains a lot. Mowing the lawn was at least half a day and even then it didn't look all that great. The rotary mower had a habit of knocking over half the grass and cutting what was left standing.

Eventually, our friendly neighbor took sympathy on us and literally gave us a mower. A hover mower, to be precise. What's a hover mower? Imagine your standard gas push mower: You pull the cord, it starts, you push it, it rolls around and cuts the grass. Now imaging that same mower without those handy wheels. That, friends, is a hover mower. The idea is that the same motor that drives the blade can pull in air and pump it out beneath the mower deck, creating a cushion of air that the mower rides on instead of wheels. Like a hover craft. In theory, they are nice because you can push or pull them any direction with little effort -- great for smaller lawns and trimming.

Now, the mower we were given was definitely some of the earlier hover technology. The problem was that if you hit thick grass, the blade slowed down and when the blade slowed down, the 'air pump' slowed down too. And then hovering mower slowly floated back to earth... and shaved bald spots into the lawn. Eventually it would speed up again and float back to its operating height of 2 inches off the ground. It was actually slower to use then the hand mower.

Another big difference here is that at least half of the mower market isn't gas, its electric. Mowing the lawn means getting out a very long extension cord and hoping you don't mow over it. The hover mower was electric.

Eventually, we broke down and decided to get a more substantial mower. Enter the Flymo 360XC. Flymo is a very prominent brand here that we know better in the USA as Husqavarna. After doing some research at Which!, the UK equivalent to Consumer Reports, I picked the 360XC for its nice combination of features at a good price. This one is electric, too. Amazon UK delivered it in a day and away I went (if you overlook the first mower I received that was missing the handle...)

I've mowed the lawn several times with it now and I am not disappointed. Its very easy to use, switches modes (mower, mulcher, bagger) well, and can handle the worst our lawn can throw at. On the downside, if we use the bagger, our mutant lawn can easily fill the catch 30 times on one mow. I now have a 50 meter extension cord that gives me ample opportunity to almost run over my cord.

So here it is, a graphic ode to my Flymo: