Most guys would think I’m daft for not having had my kids out doing the yard work years ago. They’d say something like, “dude what’s wrong with you?” (That’s a sentence I hear a lot anyway)
These guys would then get more pointed with their critique, adding “that’s one of the only benefits of having kids, so you can kick back with beer and watch the game while they mow the lawn!”
Bleh.
I’ve loved, absolutely loved, being solely in charge of the grassy grass of our near half acre suburban plot.
For 15 years I’ve eschewed the convenience of riding mowers, as well as any assistance from my two children, leaving me out there alone with music and, later, podcasts flowing into my ears, getting the only legitimate exercise of my adulthood before I changed that part of my life a few years back.
I’m now changing the yard work portion of my life.
The gas, the oil, the noise, the weight of my metal AF push mower — ugh — it was all just so much, too much for me to want to put onto the shoulders of the girls. It was not something I wanted to pawn off any kid let alone my own.
RYOBI has changed all that.
There’s no gasoline to pour, no fumes to enhale, no oil to change, and nearly no sound relative to my old mowers.
Being at the helm of the RYOBI 40V Cordless Self-Propelled 20” Lawn Mower is like harnessing a team of futuristic battery powered goats to keep your lawn manicured. Ummmm, at least that’s the way I first sold it to my goat-loving tween but to be fair I didn’t need to fashion a flimsy animal analogy out of thin air; she practically begged to be allowed to (wo)man the new mower in the warm air of summertime.
We recently returned from an 8-day vaca last week to find some super tall grassy patches on our mutt of a lawn. Because the RYOBI mower needed to work extra hard my girl and I needed three full battery charges throughout the course of a Sunday. Obviously that isn’t exactly ideal for those wanting to bang out the yard work in a single go but it works perfectly for us.
With the downtime of battery charging on the kitchen counter, the tween gets a natural break and a chance to use the RYOBI 40-volt trimmer to attack with a Liam-Neeson-Taken-style of vengeance the weeds annoyingly growing between the brick pavers of our back patio and front walkway. She also can use this time ‘off’ as an opportunity to run around in the 20-inch wide mowed channels of the backyard with a soccer ball at her feet, or grab a snack, or plop down on the sofa with a book (probably one of Rick Riordan’s Greek mythology YA novels she always has under her arm).
Still, I might buy an extra 40v RYOBI battery so that when the mercury rises too high for her comfort or while she’s at sleepaway horse riding camp, I’ll be able to wrap up the yard work in a few blinks, alone again with a string of European football podcasts and pundits pouring into my head. Oh man, soccer season is back baby!
I don’t mind the extra $139 Home Depot expensive, for the spare battery, because I’m not filling up a gas tank every couple weeks at $3 a gallon. I’m also not wasting any time draining engines at the end of the season or polluting the world with smoke and sound. Instead, I’ll be watching my footy on autumn weekend mornings, with the windows open, while my kid quietly handles the lawn mowing with RYBOI’s self propelled, kid-friendly, battery powered beauty.
Get inspired with RYOBI to finish off your summer strong.
*RYOBI kindly sent me a mower and trimmer to facilitate this story. All opinions expressed above are honest and unbiased, as always. And the photos I used here may not look like my usual quality because they weren’t staged or set up in any way, they are of my 11-year-old actually mowing the grass, like, not even stopping for me to get a stable still photograph. She wasn’t messing around and I wasn’t going to mess with her mojo.
