drewroman.com

Living in a townhouse can pose some interesting challenges. One of mine was mowing the small patch of grass in the front of our house. Our front lawn consists of a patch of grass approximately 10′x12′. A few years ago, I set out to find a better way.

When I was a kid I remember mowing the grass with a reel mower, which was great as you could hang it up on the wall, no fooling around with gas, nothing but a little kid power required to get the grass mowed. We tried that for a little while here, but one downside to reel mowers is that they work best when the grass hasn’t grown too high and you need a little bit of room to get the reel moving at a speed that actually cuts the grass instead of just bending it over.

Still not wanting to mess with gas, I tried using an electric weed whacker for a while. The patch of grass is small enough to actually get away with this and with a steady hand, actually doesn’t come out looking too bad. A day or two after cutting the grass the downsides of that approach would show up, patches that I missed or cut unevenly, that were now looking like sh**.

I was thinking at this stage that I needed a regular mower, but regular mowers were still not an option. I still didn’t want to mess around with gas as I didn’t have a good place to store it. Another factor working against me was that our townhouse in in the middle of the set, I wasn’t about to lug a big mower through the house, especially a gas powered one.

I started my search, but all I could find at first were 18″ corded electrics, there were also a few larger cordless ones at the time. Those would probably do the trick, but I still wasn’t happy, I needed something smaller and lighter. After a while I finally found the Lawn Pup, but they weren’t in stock anywhere. Good old Ebay came through and I had my Lawn Pup a few days later for around $80 or so, lightly used. It has a 13″ blade, the body made of a sturdy plastic and it’s powerful enough to hold up to all but the heaviest of grass.

It looks like a child’s toy, especially in person, some people give me funny looks when I bring it outside, but those looks fade quickly once I start mowing the grass. The bad thing is that I don’t believe that they make them anymore, and can’t find them anywhere, which is too bad. What I’d love to see is a cordless version, I would buy one in a minute if someone made one…

I did find a few possible replacements if my Lawn Pup gives out on me before we move into a single-family home.