My landlady in Fairfield had an old rusty reel mower in the garage, and I tried using it once before giving up -- it just wouldn't cut worth a darn, so I assumed it was dull, and I asked around to see if anyone would sharpen it, but no one would.  But then just before I left Fairfield, a friend told me that he used a reel mower, and he was the first person I'd ever met who did, so I asked him how he sharpened it.  He said, "You don't need to sharpen it.  You just adjust it right, and it sharpens itself."  Well, that got me intrigued, so I tinkered with the thing until I figured it out, and it did an OK job.  I wouldn't want to use it on a lawn the size of the one I had in Fairfield, but for one the size we were buying in Emporia, it was just the thing, so I asked my landlady if I could buy it from her, and she gave it to me for free!

During the summer and fall, I had plenty of time to think about what I was doing.  In no particular order, here's a partial list of top ten Reasons to Use a Reel Mower:

1. Never use two horses to do what a quarter of a horse can do.
2. Gas-powered mowers are noisy and smelly, and electric ones are expensive.
3. No really, how many quiet evenings have been ruined because your neighbors were mowing their lawns?  Do you want to be that obnoxious to them?
4. Power mowers are dangerous.  Why does a blade have to go so fast just to cut grass?  You might as well keep a chainsaw in your kitchen to open cans.
5. It's great whole-body, aerobic exercise.
6. It will make you seriously wonder why you have so much grass.  Even if you have hardly any to start with.
7. It will make you see the virtues of crab grass, which is succulent and easy to cut, over zoysia, which is stringy and tough.
8. The way it throws clippings into the air, it's like marching in your own ticker-tape parade.
9. Mulching mowers are back in style.  This mower was mulching before mulching was cool.
10. It slows traffic in your neighborhood.

I hope I can convince some of you to give a reel mower a try.  It's not for everyone... at least not yet!