Trade offs

Some of you know we are in the process of getting rid of our battery-run lawnmower, the Neuton 4.1. This was our first purchase after we chose our house. We were still in NYC, but had already signed the papers on our house here and had 2 months till moving time. We knew we needed a lawnmower, and we knew that lawnmowers are not regulated like vehicles, and thus spew out a lot of emissions and use a lot of gasoline. So we found the Neuton mower, which got great reviews. We bought it, we loved it. Quiet (we can have conversations while mowing), so lightweight, and easy to use. I was the main mower for the first couple years. But the downside is that it's tiny--only a 14' wide blade, and is recommended just for yards no larger than a 1/4 acre. Ours is bigger since it's a corner lot, and one battery couldn't make it through the mowing session. So we bought a 2nd. Even so, the number of passes you have to make to cover the lawn with such a small mower takes long enough to nearly force you into heat exhaustion on 95 degree Iowa summer days. So Mike got annoyed one day and went to Lowe's for a gas mower. Well, actually there was a transition-- a neighbor purchased one of those push-mowers and gave us her old gas mower, which was on the fritz. That got us through about a month of mowing, until it died. (It went quickly on Freecycle, though, so someone out there must think they will be handy enough to fix it.) Neuton has a larger mower now available, but the cost of that plus 2 new batteries would have put us at nearly $600, and we weren't willing to go there just yet. Anyway, Mike bought a gas guzzler.

I feel guilty about this little step backwards in our quest to live more eco-friendly lives. I'm not sure that using the biodegradable trash liners actually is an equal trade-off for pushing around a gas mower every 4-5 days for 6ish months of the year. So in an effort to be more eco-friendly in other areas, we ordered a compost tumbler, and I'm looking for a clothes line to start hanging up diapers and other clothes to dry. I've been wanting to try the clothesline thing for awhile, but it often slips my mind. Thanks to our next door neighbor, who just bought one, I'm motivated to find my own. So that's on the list. I hear that sunlight naturally..sanitizes (is that the word??) diapers and takes the stains out, so hopefully we'll be pleasantly surprised. I'll have to stay on it, though, since we go through diapers like wildfire, and they'll need to dry quick in order to keep Benj's bottom covered. Mike tells me we simply cannot put jeans or jean products on a line as he hates the feel for it, but all else is fair game (even undies? hmmm, that could be interesting).

On the composting front, we already have a homemade bin that we made a couple years ago and set up in the garden. We got a few wooden pallets from Lowe's that they were going to trash and made a 3/4 box shape to put around the pile. Unfortunately, though, we are really bad about going out and turning the pile. We also lack the necessary brown material (carbon sources) like dry leaves and straw, etc., to keep it going well enough. All we add is kitchen scraps, which is too much green (nitrogen) material and larger items like banana peels take too long to compost down. So we are going to have to make some strides to do better, but the tumbler is our first step. No more pitchfork turning, just a few turns of the barrel each day and it does its thing. Hopefully this will eventually enrich our horrible garden soil, which is dry and rocky and far from fertile. Our tomato plants are about a foot high; that's how bad it is. Compounded by my generally black thumb, little grows here at our house. But I'd like to get some gardening stuff in next year for Benjamin's baby food, at least, so the compost will hopefully help with that if I can make it work!! We went with the Organic Compost Tumbler, btw.

Trade offs for Mother Earth. Hmm. Hopefully in the future, when the gas mower dies, we'll be ready to plunge back into battery-mowing. And hopefully by then they'll have a larger more useful model for larger yards. Until then, if anyone is interested in our Neuton 4.1, let me know. It's listed on Craigs list, and I had one interested gal, but so far no definite takers.