Mowing, the Suburban Chore

When my husband and I bought our house, we were excited to finally have a lawn for our dog (now dogs) to run and play. I knew that I wanted to be as environmentally friendly as possible--but lawns in general aren't the "greenest" your yard can be. To keep our carbon footprint at a minimum, we purchased an old-fashioned manual lawn mower.

Gas-powered lawn mowers are responsible for about 5% of air pollution. Although that seems like a small number, ever little bit helps, and there are other benefits to using a human-powered machine.

• No air-pollution: This means that you--and your neighbors--aren't breathing in carcinogens. You'll keep your carbon footprint at zero to maintain your lawn.

• No noise-pollution: How many times have you been awakened on a weekend morning because your neighbor decided to mow? You'll be kind to your ears by making the switch.

• Nearly no maintenance: I remember my dad spending countless hours getting gas or repairing our mower after we ran over a rock (oops). These mowers need only a quick spray of lubricant to stay in tip-top shape (and a quick spray of WD-40 pollutes much less than running a gas-powered mower).

• Exercise: I'm always looking for ways to sneak in exercise, and although these aren't difficult to use, you will get in a bit of a workout by pushing one around your yard.

After a summer of use, I can say I am very happy with our purchase, despite a few drawbacks:

You must make sure you don't mow over sticks, rocks, pine-cones, etc., so that you don't break your mower; this means a bit more preemptive yard clean-up than I might otherwise do, but it isn't much (we also have lots of trees in our yard, which means lots of sticks and pine cones).

The yard must be dry (or almost dry) for the mower to be effective. While we were in a drought, this was no problem. However, our drought is over, and we've discovered a few spots in the yard that are now perpetually damp and cannot be mowed easily, if at all. My plan is to find some nice water and shade-loving plants for this particular area--then I'll never need to mow it!