Despite the size of our plot, we only mow a small portion of the yard immediately surrounding the house. Notice I used the word “yard” and not the term “grass,” and certainly not “lawn.” From a distance our yard may look like grass, but it is mostly made up of many grass-like plants. Not being a big fan of the work (or chemicals) involved in maintaining a real lawn, we are happy to let the yard go au natural. However, not so much that the house is obscured by the inevitable not-really-grass forest.

It doesn’t hurt that the “lawn” mower is incapable of the stamina required to mow more than we currently do. The mower we have was a housewarming gift from my father, leftover from our house in Maryland where we had a postage-sized plot which could easily be mowed in under 30 minutes on one charge.

Yes, charge.

Our mower is a cordless rechargeable, and—I assume—quite unusual in rural Vermont, even with a large hippie population fighting global warming. It suits our needs and has enough power to cut as much not-really-grass as we need.

In fact, the mower’s limited power has helped inspire the landscaping surrounding the house. Well, that, and I got a late start on the mowing this year due to the rainier spring. The result was that the areas I left to grow on their own produced nice patches of wild flowers. We still have to keep on the alert for aggressive and invasive species—and definitely thistle.