ROBIN WRITES: The first mow

By Editor | April 7, 2026 |

He hitches up his jeans with his thumbs. The wrinkles around his eyes deepen as he stares out the window. From his toothpick-parted lips come the words he has waited months to utter.
“It’s time to mow.” I watch his face as he studies the yard; his jaw is clenched, and his eyebrows come together like untrimmed hedges.
John’s forearms tense and relax as he explained just how dull the blades on the mower were and how hard a job it was to sharpen them.
He grabs his baseball cap to cover the bald, baby-soft skin on his head and walks outside to the shed. There is a saunter to his step. He hikes his leg up over the seat of the mower and settles into the saddle with a kind of tenderness only men and machines share.
The mower is already gassed up and ready to roll. The beast purrs to life with the turn of a trusty key. John’s slowly resets the choke with an experienced hand, and he’s off.
The first mow of the year has begun.
I listen to the comforting roar of the engine as it passes back and forth in front of the house. Only now do I feel that winter is really over and sunny, warm days are ahead. Days filled with birds, sunshine, and flowers…
FLOWERS!
How could I forget? I grab the scrap of paper taped to the inside of the cabinet door and dash outside. John’s face is shaded by his baseball cap, but I see the set of his shoulders and the clench of his fists as he chews up grass with abandon.
I must get to him before he reaches the irises.
All the flowers planted around the yard are listed and drawn out clearly on this paper to prevent their demise by an over-zealous husband who doesn’t know a daffodil from a dandelion and couldn’t care less.
If it grows, he will cut it. I have to hurry to save the tulips, irises, daylilies, and hyacinths before they become mulch.
The closer I get to the mower, the more aware I become of the melody that seems to echo through the air beneath the steady hum of the engine. It’s not a pretty sound. But it is a cheerful sound.
It’s the sound of someone at peace with nature and his place in his world. I am close enough to see John’s face now, and I discover the source.
He is singing. Oh, not the kind of churchgoing, hymnal-holding hymns he sings on Sundays. Not the country music standards of his youth. He is singing one note, over and over, with his lips opening and closing like a snapdragon being squeezed by a child.
It is a type of “DUMDEDUMDUMDUM” that is never meant to be heard by another living soul—the melody you sing when you’re happy, and you need to sing or explode.
The shadow of my body falls over the hood of the riding mower, and John looks up in surprise. His “DUMDEDUM” stops mid- “DUM” and he smiles sheepishly.
“Don’t forget my flowers!” I see a glint in his eyes that tells me he hasn’t forgotten…but he takes the paper from my hand and tromps the accelerator, driving away without a word.
As I watch him continue his labor, leaving neat runways of newly mown grass behind him, I hear a “DEDUM” mingle with the roar of the engine. I will store this memory away to remind John of his joy on that first morning of mowing season.
When September comes, and he grumbles about having to cut the grass AGAIN, I’ll sing a sweet little “DUMDEDUMDUM” ditty as I hand him his cap.
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■ Robin is a freelance columnist who lives and writes in Quincy, Illinois. Contact her at [email protected].