Workout

Memorial Day weekend was beautiful and warm here, a fitting beginning to the summer season. Finally, I’ve been able to go out without a jacket or coat, wearing just a sweater for an extra layer, if at all. We’ve had some rain, too, and as a result, everything is growing. Our new cherry tree has dozens of cherries, still green but getting plump. Our new blueberry bushes are filling out, too, and I’m looking forward to picking some berries in coming weeks.

The grass in our reseeded lawn, a nitrogen-restoring mix of fescue and clover, has grown quite tall, too. The clover takes a couple of seasons to establish itself (at which point the lawn becomes low-maintenance) but the grass has definitely taken hold. Meanwhile, Al has been away for the past week, visiting friends out west, returning Thursday morning. The yard is his turf, and he loves to putter outside. But at the rate the grass has been growing, by the time he comes home, I envisioned monkeys swinging from blade to blade. Or, more realistically, a happy neighborhood of deer ticks.

So, I decided that I needed to mow the lawn myself.

Now, I have never done this before. We have an old, gas-powered mulching mower, the kind with a pull starter-cord. It’s not terribly heavy, so I knew I could push it. But I wasn’t really sure how to operate it. So, I asked a mechanically-skilled friend who lives up the street to give me a lesson.

He inspected the oil and gasoline levels and adjusted the height, because I didn’t want to mow too close to the ground and chop off all the clover that has formed. It took him several tries to start the mower, because it had been sitting idle over the winter. Then I tried, but I didn’t have the grip or arm strength to yank it hard and fast enough. So he started it again for me. All I needed to do was grip the bar that controls on/off, push and mow.

Which I did. It was not terribly difficult, but it was not easy, either. The hardest part for my hands was gripping the bar to the mower handle, so it wouldn’t turn off before I was finished. Maneuvering it around our front yard took some pulling and shoving, especially because the grass was at least a foot tall. I worked up quite a sweat. Just as I was almost done, the mower stopped because it had run out of gas. Good timing.

Next step was to use the weed wacker to trim the borders of the lawn, but our extension cord only goes so far, so I had to leave that task only partially done. Also, the weed wacker vibrates intensely, not great for my hands.

After I put everything away, I proudly reviewed my handiwork. I could feel that I’d used muscles in my arms and legs that I haven’t challenged in a long time. It was actually good exercise, which I hadn’t expected. And the front lawn looks better, albeit far from pristine. Thanks to my good neighbor, I learned a new skill. But if I ever have to care for the lawn more often, I will definitely get rid of that old mower and buy a battery-powered version that is less polluting, more energy-efficient, and easier to operate.

That said, I accomplished my goal. And I proved to myself in the process that my hands are still capable of more than I have come to assume over my decades with scleroderma. Well worth the experiment.

Evelyn Herwitz blogs weekly about living fully with chronic disease, the inside of baseballs, turtles and frogs, J.S. Bach, the meaning of life and whatever else she happens to be thinking about at livingwithscleroderma.com. Please view Privacy Policy here.