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" First time I ever climbed into the seat of a ride-on lawn mower was the summer of 1989, working a groundskeeping job at an industrial park near the airport. It was twenty acres, carved into parking lots, low warehouse buildings, landscaped islands, and long stretches of thick ryegrass. We used a Simplicity tractor mower\u2014eleven-horse Briggs &amp;amp;amp; Stratton, thirty-six-inch deck. Once a week, on mowing day, I&amp;#039;d do the whole property, Walkman in my ears, Snapple wedged next to my hip (no cup holders then), the hot black vinyl seat burning the backs of my legs. Me: cut off from the world, unavailable, thinking about nothing or everything. I&amp;#039;d bump along, taming the scraggly grass until it looked as close to the outfield at Fenway Park as I could get it, one thirty-six-inch strip at a time. Took me most of a day. The back of my neck would be pink with sunburn, my ears ringing, my hair flecked with grass. Even if I hadn&amp;#039;t finished the day&amp;#039;s other jobs\u2014pulling weeds in the loading docks, filling potholes with Sakrete cold patch, whatever else\u2014the lawns were mowed, and the place looked new again. I loved mowing day. Today it would take half the time and be twice the fun. We live in the golden age of mowers. You have grass to cut? There are machines that steer with precision levers or a powerful wheel or a hybrid of the two. Engines that pack twenty-five horsepower, letting you fly across the backyard. High-performance blades that rotate fast enough to shear each blade as cleanly as a new razor across a whisker, even at high speeds. Maybe it&amp;#039;s been a while since you bought a mower. Just as today&amp;#039;s new-car buyers are discovering all kinds of features that weren&amp;#039;t around the last time they bought a vehicle (&amp;quot;It brakes by itself!&amp;quot;), anyone shopping for a ride-on mower this spring is in for a few pleasant surprises. Home editor Roy Berendsohn and I recently spent an entire mowing season, spring through fall, testing three very different machines, each one an exemplar of what&amp;#039;s out there now: a traditional lawn tractor, a lever-controlled zero-turn mower, and a zero-turn with a steering wheel. Our test lawn was 26,810 square feet, about two-thirds of an acre. Even if you don&amp;#039;t happen to be in the market for a new mower, turn the page and you&amp;#039;ll find detailed diagrams of the new mower technology, plus advice about mowing any lawn. And if you are looking to buy, you&amp;#039;re hitting the market at a pretty sweet moment. Either way, if you have a lawn, mowing day is approaching. Rejoice. How to mow a hill  People have been killed by riding mowers flipping over on steep grades. Here&amp;#039;s how not to become one of those people:  Read the owner&amp;#039;s manual to find out the maximum slope at which you can safely operate the machine. If you&amp;#039;re unsure about the slope, buy a $12 inclinometer at a hardware store. Up and down, not back and forth. Remove obstacles (like rocks). If you can&amp;#039;t, add landscaping around them so you can give them a wide berth. Don&amp;#039;t mow wet slopes. If a slope leads to a pond, drop-off, or other hazard, stay two mower widths away. Cut the remainder with a walk mower. Never turn on a hill. Never let a teenager or an inexperienced operator cut on slopes. How to make your lawn look like a ballpark  Roger Bossard, head groundskeeper at Chicago&amp;#039;s U.S. Cellular Field, joined the White Sox organization in 1967 as an assistant to his father, Gene. A ballpark is different from a lawn\u2014most have high-tech drainage systems, and Bossard fertilizes his six times a season and measures water applications to the drop. But homeowners, he says, should play by the same basic rules he does: Food: Fertilizer drives root growth. Increased root mass translates into thick top growth that shades out weeds and cools the ground, reducing moisture loss. Water: Moisture dissolves nutrients so they can promote growth. It also cools the grass through the evaporation process known as transpiration, where the grass moves water from root to blade to the air. Air: Running a core aerator over the turf improves oxygen exchange and moisture retention at root level. Beneficial soil microbes also flourish with the oxygen increase. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/lawn-garden/a14848/the-joy-of-mowing/>