She finally hired a neighbor kid to take care of the grass, but she still did all the gardening, and digging and hauling plants to the basement for the winter.
Farmers don’t mow lawns, but their wives do. Mom mowed at first with a push mower probably like this one, but the yard and side yard were good sized. For some reason they bought an electric lawn mower, with a very long cord. I was tall enough to push it so I soon had the mowing job. No self-propelled mowers in those days, so I had to plan how to go about it while keeping the cord out of the way.
Push mowers with gas engines were handier, then self-propelled made everything easier.
At some point Mom got a riding mower. She enjoyed mowing more and more of the farmyard well into her eighties, maybe longer than that. By the time she was 90, my sis Gloria was living with her. Gloria trimmed the ditches and tricky areas with a gas push mower.
The only time I’ve ever used a riding mower was after Mom’s hip replacement surgery. Already deep into fibromyalgia, I enjoyed mowing with it but it set up a pain response (so does riding in a car) so that I could scarcely walk afterwards. Bummer, huh! I don’t think I’ve mowed grass since then.
It’s now held together with a little Duct Tape, but at least he pretty well stayed with the JD color scheme.
Son Dan lives in the Twin Cities. A year ago they moved to a handier house and bought a gas mower. But the lawn with their first bungalow was small enough that he used a reel mower, just like his great grandma Leora.