My microphone is dusty. I have to dust my microphone and my microphone arm that holds the microphone I need to dust in here. What are we gonna talk about today? Oh, hi.
Welcome to the Daily Grateful I'm Michael Croce and today we're going to talk about the joy the absolute Just wonderful joy of mowing the lawn. I know I'm kind of worried about that I like a well-mowed and edged lawn when I when my kids were all young when I had young kids There were just a few times when you were never allowed to talk to dad All right, there was you all when dad was doing radio You know cuz I had a studio in the house and you know kids were not supposed to come in well I was doing radio. They did but they weren't supposed to I will tell you my youngest Zach When he was just a baby. He was on my lap every time I did radio As a matter of fact, if you knew how many times I changed his diaper while doing the radio show nobody knew it Yeah, but but but they weren't supposed to talk to me when I was doing radio and the other and other three Sunday mornings I would walk out to the street and I would get the Sunday st.
Petersburg times newspaper I would go to the dining room table and I would spread the whole thing out and I would start on page one and nobody Was supposed to talk to me at all until I was done reading the Sunday paper Now and by the way I got up early on Sundays to do that before the kids got up But they knew if they got up and they came out and dad was reading the papers day that away from them and the other time that you were not allowed to bother dad for anything. I mean nothing You know nothing is when dad was mowing the art because I Loved mowing the art. I would go out. It was like this.
It was like a zen thing for me First thing I would go if I would check the gas and the more I would check the oil and the more I of course had already checked the blade to make sure it was nice and sharp and I always started with the front yard I would start the motor by the way in those days I would only mow with a toro mower a really good toro mower at the time. It was a toro pushball itself repelled Wonderful mower loved it So I would go out and I would start my toro mower and off I would go and mow the art I got such joy out of mowing the art and My mind shut off totally. I did not think about anything I just went into this zen state I did not think but yet I made perfectly straight lines and I would get the law in all mode shut it off Then I would go and I did not have a line trimmer in those days Well, I had one but I would never edge the yard with a line trimmer never never never now today We have line trimmers that are really good to edge yard with but in those days I had a gas You know engine yard mower yard edger who had a Briggs and Stratton motor on it And I would check the blade and by the way, I changed the blades on a thing Oh, I don't know about every fourth time through the yard I would put a new blade in because I didn't like you know if it I want I wanted that edge to be just exactly right So then I would do that I would get that all done and then I would take the blower now I did not have a gas powered blower. I had an electric blower But in those days they didn't have battery-operated blowers.
They had you know, you had to plug it in So I had this big long extension cord and I would go out with that thing And I would blow all the stuff back onto the lawn and I was so again not doing any thinking whatsoever at all mow the yard edge The yard and then blew the yard. It was just oh Such such an escape, okay, such an escape and I think it's fair to say I was not in a great marriage at the time and it was as a matter of fact Really not in a good marriage at all and She knew not to mess with me when I was mowing the yard I've you know she'd want to bitch about a lot of stuff at a lot of times But not while I was mowing the yard. She was always very good about that I have to give her credit But once I got all that done then I then the disappointment would come up because now I had to go back in the house And now I had to deal with her but anyway, it it wasn't that bad Well, actually it was but got through it and I totally just love mowing the art now What I bought this house after when I split up first thing I did is I bought a brand-new toro more I left the other one at her house and then I bought an electric and no, I'll tell you what I did Oh, God. This is horrible.
This is absolutely horrible by the time I had moved in here He had a new fella and who is now her husband and he had an electric edger an electric edger You know, he had to plug it in it wasn't bad. I was an edger with a blade and all of that and we were still talking Oh, so I went over there and I said listen I got him, you know, just in this house. I gotta mow the art. Can I borrow his edger and he was there?
He's yeah, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, just bring him back when you're done. I never brought it back I said no you're moving into my house. You know now my edger.
It's my edger I use that edger over here For about nine years and it finally wore out and at that point, you know I was moving on that there were much better line trimmers at that time But when it wore out he had I had had to go buy a new one, right? And I did everything in the in the world I could to avoid talking to her But because of children we would have to talk and she called me up just as I was you know I was gonna mow the lawn later the day I said hey, can I borrow his edger and she goes I don't see why not and then he heard what was going on. Oh, no, he's not borrowing my So yeah, instead of buying an edger I went out and I bought a line trimmer a really good line trimmer Well, I had a line trimmer by then but the line trimmer I had was really good and I could edge with it so I have like moved on from all of that and Here, I don't know two years ago. I The Toro I wore out my Toro the next Toro and then a friend of mine gave me a blue boy mower He blue boys were manufactured here in my town in the 60s and they were really good mowers And I got a self-propelled one from him.
His name was John. He would rebuild these things I was his hobby and I bought one from him thing weighed 200 pounds I mean, you know getting it into the back of my small pickup truck I mean I almost had a thrombo doing that and I was so happy to have that But then I decided I didn't like it after I mowed it one time and I loaned it to a guy that lives around the corner He's still using it. It's his I won't ask for a pack But I went and decided I was gonna go battery operated electric on everything now in those days Ego e-grow mowers were new on the market and I remember I was driving with my son Zach And I saw somebody mowing their yard with that and I pulled over to their yard and Zach's looking at me Like I am just batshit crazy. I get out and I go hi and he goes hi, and I said that's your new e-grow mower Yeah, I said can I mover your part of your front yard?
I won't try it out. He's what I just love you. Yeah, and Zach is covering his eyes He just yeah, oh man, and I'm on this guy's yard, and I I'm liking it It was okay, but it didn't make my heart sing I was doing radio at the time and I came back and I talked about it I was doing a gardening radio show and I came back and I talked about it and I'll be damn they sent me one of the mowers. They sent me an e-grow mower and But before they did that I just bought another toro because you know, I bought another toro but so I mowed half of my front yard with e-grow mower that was out You know back.
This was several years ago when they first came out and I mowed the other half with the toro and then my at that time 87-year-old neighbor Was you know, we'd sit out in this front yard and we'd go talk and I'd say oh, why don't you look at my yard? Yeah, I saw you use that electric mower for half of it. I said yeah, I said Which part which lawn looks bad vestigos on the one that you did with the toro and I had to look at it and I looked at it And I looked at us and you're right. Yeah Absolutely, so that was devastating in a way, but I gave the e-grow mower away to another neighbor.
Just take it away It's all yours. Happy, you know, and I kept working with the toro and then I just decided I was going to go electric I was with my favorite xy, so I've never do another one I was talking about before well I'm going long today aren't I anyway, you know we went to this place and It was one of these places that gets over stocks and all this good type of stuff and they had a Ryobi Longmore there electric Ryobi long more they had self-propelled and they had one that wasn't self-propelled and I looked at them and they Had they were reasonably priced and I'd been reading about them and they were coming up with pretty good reviews I was gonna buy the self-propelled one of the guys talking out of it He said no, he said at your age. You need physical fitness. This thing is light You can push it and you'll feel better for it.
I said, okay, then I bought a line trimmer We'll be one trimmer everything 40 watt or I'm sorry 60 watt the big one or was it for you? I don't know the biggest battery that they had I bought that and then I bought a blower all Ryobi and I brought that back And I've been mowing the art but I'm getting older now and I gotta tell you it's mowing the arts a bit rough I gotta get coming over tomorrow. He's gonna mow the art for me because it just wears me out too much I got to get in better shape to start mowing my yard again because I love it so so much And I'm grateful to have the opportunity, you know, I just love looking at the front yard I love seeing a nice edged yard in the line trimmer that I have edges the yard really really really well You get away from things like that. I'm grateful for it man.
It just makes me happy Okay, the next time I'm only the art myself, but this just makes me grateful. All right. We'll see you people tomorrow