A green lawn mower
About a month ago, I got a new lawn mower. I hadn’t really thought much about electric mowers, perhaps believing they wouldn’t have enough power or a long battery life. But really, I just didn’t know much about them. But I got interested, and checked models available online. I read that an Earthwise model has a strong 24Volt battery (lasts an hour), and so does a WORX model. It takes me about an hour to mow the yard, so it began to seem plausible that an electric mower could work for me.
I didn’t want to get something like this online if possible; I wanted to find someone who would sell it from their shop and, more importantly, would stand behind it with service if I needed that later. I called through a list of W-S and Triad garden centers, then I called Sedgefield Lawn & Garden Center in Jamestown (map). They do sell electric mowers. They had models in their shop for me to look at, from Earthwise and from WORX. They have a local distributor for both brands. I chose the WORX mower because it is lighter and I felt better about its quality and the ease of getting it serviced as needed. They kept the mower to assemble it and charged the battery, and the boys and I picked it up the following Saturday. Sedgefield even mailed me a card that week thanking me for my business!
Now for the best part: in the past, I generally had headaches, burning eyes and sneezing fits whenever I mowed, no matter the season. Maybe it’s not so surprising. But since using this mower which doesn’t spew exhaust in front of me for the hour it takes to mow the yard, I haven’t had any of those symptoms and it’s also much much quieter. And it has plenty of power and more than enough charge to last for my yard-mowing. The removable battery charges easily overnight. It makes mowing a pleasure!
Blueberries!
This past weekend, we drove up to Ashe County to our favorite patch to pick blueberries. It is a good drive from Winston, but also a good excuse to visit with family. My granny lives about five minutes away and we picnic with her after getting the berries and before driving home.
First picks
This year, we set up three square foot gardens. Two are 4X4 and one is 3X3. We planted some early seeds about a month ago: spinach, lettuce, carrots, chard and peas. This past Sunday night, we harvested our first baby spinach!!
Grayson has been keeping a close watch on these leaves and was convinced it was time to bring some in. We showed him how to pinch off the leaves, and he went right to work.
I was very excited that we would have such fresh leaves for our green breakfast smoothie the next morning.
Aren’t they beautiful? 
Hippie Day
The elementary school has been having spirit Fridays this month. Today is hippie day!
Growing Readers
After school yesterday, we took a trip to our local library. Both boys chose many books to bring home to look at and to read. When we got home, I opened the van up and started carrying things in. Neither boy moved… I looked in the back and this is what I saw:
I came on in, but they were comfortable in their chairs for 20 minutes or so before they came to a stopping point and came on inside.
Leprechauns!
Oh, my! It seems that even though we left a sign on our door for them to not come in, at least one leprechaun came into our house last night! We found a trail of glitter going from the window, over Grayson’s table and to the trap Evan built yesterday. No leprechauns were to be found, but there were overturned chairs as well as a four leaf clover left in the middle of the trail! Both boys were so excited this morning as they inspected the house for damage that might have been done overnight. Did this happen at your house, too?
Jump Rope for Heart
Last week, Evan’s school hosted a Jump Rope for Heart fundraiser to help the American Heart Association. Evan participated in this last year and has really looked forward to it this year! He was able to raise $150 and he jumped for all he was worth. I didn’t volunteer to help this year since I was on a field trip with Grayson on the same day, but I got to the gym in plenty of time to help some anyway and take lots of pictures in the process.
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