So apparently my mil enjoys mowing and thinks that it's a woman's job to do but i don't enjoy doing the lawn nor the weed eating. It was my dad's job when I was a girl and when we got married my husband did it but since we have lived with them she feels I should do it and most of the time I will run the riding mower but really I don't like to. She is outside mowing right now.

So who does it at your house?

Our gardener......there are some things I'm perfectly willing to pay someone else to do!!

The kids. 1 girl, 1 boy. And its a push mower.

My teenaged son does the mowing at our house. Or when he is at work or marching band practice, my husband mows it. I think I have mowed the lawn like 5 times total in my life :)

Prior to his getting very sick and then dropping dead, my father did all the yard work. He enjoyed doing it, and my mom and I helped (which involved a lot of him telling me "you're not holding the bag open enough!")

After that, my mom mowed the lawn. Once in a while she's called a lawn guy, and I've offered to help pay for it (I HATE pushing a mower, especially since ours is not a walk behind and it's a lot of freaking grass, since we have an older Florida house surrounded by lawn) but she says she enjoys doing it.

I personally would like to landscape the front to native plants and less grass, but that takes money and time, and while we have the time, mostly, money is an issue. Palm trees and pretty paths and lots of Florida native plants aren't cheap, not to mention either the time to design it or to pay someone to design it all.

Whoever has the most time/inclination! DH does it most, followed by teenage boy spawn. I am not comfortable with the rider yet, but learning. Girl spawn both dislike it, so tend to do other jobs instead.

Growing up, my brother and I split it--my dad actually measured out the yard and divided it equally (allowing for trees etc.) and we each did half--alternating front vs. back each week.

Hubby does most of it with the riding mower, but I just mowed part of the yard with the push gas mower. I do pretty much all of the yard work except for mowing and leaf pickup. I'm also a perennial gardener. It's good exercise, and I enjoy being outside.

Dad had a bad back and Mom liked mowing so she did it until she had to have her first knee replacement. 3/4 acre yard with a walk behind mower and I guess she was 70 when she had to get a yard guy. I did it for my yard up until about 8 years ago when it was so dry here in ATL. I kept getting a bad cough so I got Mom's yard guy to do mine also (we live on the same street so it's easy). I have to say, I much prefer the yard guy to do it!

I unfortunately have seen our 13 yo dau. and our 12 yo son do the lawn and it was not pretty. 12 yo recently broke hubby's push mower. I wish I had the money for a lawn person.

She said she started to mow ours but decided we had too much stuff in the yard. I have a bird bath that might be in the way and that's about it. Oh well I'll do it sometime, dr appt in morning, trip to lowes(an hour east of us) and church tomorrow night and Thursday we have friends coming to help with the house and 12 yo has an endocrin check up in OKC which is two hours away one way.

Me. It's a push mower, so I have to be careful what time of day I do it in the summer. A riding mower would be so nice!

I get excited about yard work in March. By July I'm over it. I do all the yard work including the weeding of the gardens that I was begged to build (Honey if you build it for me I promise I will weed and maintain it) - yeah! Right!!

Our yard has too many obstacles for a rider so once a week during grass season I spend a day behind my gas mower making it look pretty. Sadly, that lasts about one day.

Not me - and that's all that I care about :-)

When I had a house...and a husband...my husband always did it. I think I did it exactly once, when my husband was out of town. And when I was growing up, my dad always did it.

TG

I have really bad allergies, so I dont. I do get out to pull weeds once in a while. I'd rather be hiking...

Growing up, my mother mowed. Now? My son or husband.

While growing up, I was the one who did the mowing. Once married, my husband did it. Then, when he was old enough, my son did it. Now that my son has moved out, I guess it's my husband, but really, it's kind of no one: our house is condemned, and we are just waiting for the new house to be finished so we can move out and have this one bulldozed, so we are living in a state of deferred maintenance, because why bother?

our house is condemned

You've been through quite an ordeal with your house! Any idea when you might finally be able to move to the new one?

I wish I had the money for a lawn person.

I probably should have been clearer. We don't have a lawn. The entire backyard strip (the house is on the back of the property, so the back is an L shaped 15 foot wide strip) is done in gravel with planting beds fenced off as we have dogs and they destroy lawns.
We also have drought issues here and we never did put in a lawn. The front has a smallish human use garden area (paved with picnic area and planting beds) and the rest of the acreage is our orchard. This has to be rototilled to meet CA fire abatement needs.....MUCH easier to have the nice man with the tractor do it!

55 I'm sorry I hope you get to the new house quickly.

Oh ok

Four years ago, we intentionally took out all of our lawn and added forty some raised bed/gardening boxes plus gravel paths...I really did not want to waste my time mowing any more :)

I really did not want to waste my time mowing any more :)

Yeah, but speaking as a perennial gardener, I know that maintaining 40+ raised beds takes a lot of time, too!

I know that maintaining 40+ raised beds takes a lot of time, too!

So true LOL! We love the fruits (flowers/veggies) of the labor though compared to the ubiquitous green shreds provided by the grass.

We love the fruits (flowers/veggies) of the labor though compared to the ubiquitous green shreds provided by the grass.

I agree! And the native fauna appreciate it more, too, at least in my yard. I don't use any chemicals in my yard, and we have a lot of interesting critters as a result. My gardens hum with the sound of bees when I walk through them. :^)

Any idea when you might finally be able to move to the new one?

Building a new house is a Sloooooooow process here. In part, it's because we are not alone - Christchurch is really only now seriously picking up the pace when it comes to rebuilding after the earthquakes (before this, the insurance companies wouldn't let go of the money they owe) - and because of that, the trades people have more work than they need -- so the independant builders pick and choose and work several jobs at once, which slows down individual builds. On top of that, we are those obnoxious Americans who are demanding a level of craftsmanship that exceeds the normal standard here -- all too often, that means we do the work ourselves rather than relying on the "professionals", but we are slow.

When will it be done? I have no expectations - it only leads to stress. The floors are going in right now, the walls are painted, the electrician is in to hook up the actual power switch rather than the temporary power and expects to be done by the end of the month. After that, we still need the major appliances (stove, oven, etc), the plumber to put in the plumbing fixtures, finishing touches like skirting boards (baseboards) and lights. Oh yes, and the repairs: fixing the garage ceiling where someone put there foot through it while in the attic area, fixing the walls which had to be cut into when the thermostats for the underfloor heat were put in the wrong place, fixing the roof that got smashed by the bulldozer. It is, however, coming together. It is looking more like a home and less like a building site.

55 I'm sorry I hope you get to the new house quickly.

Thanks, that's really kind of you. But really, no need to be sorry. We are actually among the lucky ones. There are so many people here in Christchurch who are worse off than us; people who got totally screwed by the insurance companies and don't have the money to fix their homes, people whose old condemned houses aren't even liveable like ours is, people who are still fighting insurance companies and haven't even started rebuilding. I can still laugh at the problems, and have made a song up about the house I live in now - "The house of the rising damp" - to the tune of "The house of the rising sun".

It was always my DH's job. I would do it very rarely if he was out of town when the lawn needed it. Then he got in this skydiving accident and ruined his shoulder, had the joint replaced twice and two other surgeries due to complications, and now has no strength in that arm................so the lawn service does it!

Our yard backs up to woods. It's still private property within the city limits owned by folks down the hill, but there is a creek dividing that area from the parts closer to their houses that they actually use, so it is quite wild near our boundary line. There are many critters living there: deer, birds, raccoons, skunks, rats.

We loved the birds, but had to quit feeding them b/c their food on the ground attracted the raccoons and skunks. Dogs got skunked several times each over the past 15 years. It was aggravating to have to take the dog out at night on a leash - in a fenced yard.

We used to love the deer but they eat every flower in the yard. They love my red and white geraniums, but leave the neighbor's pink ones alone. They also eat the buds off my day lilies, forsaking the neighbor's - and mine are cuts from hers! Go figure! We still love seeing the deer, just don't like them eating the flowers.

Another neighbor attracts the wildlife by feeding them - which is actually against the law but not enforced around here. Since my yard is between the woods and her yard, we still have the animals trooping through every night.

I don't live in an area quite that wild ....but it's wooded........we have deer, skunks, raccoons, possum and of course squirrels and chipmunks. It's in Westchester County about 30 miles north of NYC. And it's an apartment complex, not a house.

That being said......I bought birdseed that has some kind of pepper in it. Mammals don't like the pepper but birds have some kind of gland that prevents them from tasting the pepper. I wanted to feed the birds when I moved up here but was concerned with attracting unwanted animals. It's worked so far. The pepper is so strong that when I pour it into the feeder I can feel the pepper burning my tongue afterwards.

::::fingers crossed:::: that it keeps working and the other critters don't develop a taste for pepper!

Wow, I've never heard of that! I'm going to look into it. It would be so wonderful to have the birds back! Can you tell me the name or brand of the birdseed?