It was sad to see her go. We’d been together for so long — nearly twenty years — that she had come to seem like a member of the family.

Time had clearly taken its toll; she didn’t have nearly the same levels of vim and vigor as in her younger days. But I still very much enjoyed her company, especially when I rode her on balmy summer afternoons.

I was with her the other day when she began to hiccup uncontrollably. This was deeply concerning. But then, a few seconds later, she stopped and would move no more. Something deep inside me told me that something was deeply wrong with her and that our pleasant afternoons together were over.

Yep, she was a good one. But I had to face the fact that she had just suffered a major mower malfunction.

All these years later I can still recall the glorious day when she came to live with us. After decades of wrestling with cranky lawnmowers, it was a revelation to drive that nifty new zero-turn machine. She could turn on a dime and give you nine cents in change.

Her controls were instinctual. Push her right handle farther ahead than the left one and you’ll turn left. Pull both handles back and you’ll zoom rearward until you thump into something solid such as a tree and get the bejesus scared out of you. Shove both handles ahead as far as they will go, and you’ll zip across the lawn at speeds normally associated with NASCAR.

Going fast had its downsides, including hitting bumps so hard that you almost got bucked off. And at high speeds, the quality of the mowing job dropped dramatically, often resembling a haircut that had been given by a blind barber.

I’ve frequently wondered why we Americans are so obsessed with lawncare. The concept of a perfectly trimmed, laser-level lawn took root in England centuries ago. Wealthy manor house owners took great pride in having vast expanses of closely cropped grass surrounding their abodes. Various methods were used to achieve this, including the deployment of mass quantities of sheep. This wouldn’t work for me as I would be walking across our lawn and think “Oh, look! Free raisins!” only to disappointed yet again.

As a sign of our independence from Jolly Old England, we Americans began to drive on the right side of the road instead of the left and ran our horseraces in a contrary, counterclockwise manner. Both of these things are in direct opposition to the way they are done in Britain. Take that, you tea tippling toffs!

One glaring exception to all of that is lawncare. The average American homeowner spends more money on his or her lawn than the Gross Domestic Product of Liechtenstein.

Were we to follow the rebellious pattern regarding those other things, our lawns would resemble deep, dark jungles. You would need to wield a machete just to get to your car.

It was sort of like that when I was a kid growing up on our small dairy farm. Dad couldn’t afford a lawnmower, so once a summer or so he would use a tractor-mounted, seven-foot John Deere sickle mower to knock down some of the taller stuff that grew up around our farmhouse. There were times when the house was all but hidden by high grass.

About when I became an energetic and annoying eight-year-old, Dad acquired an alleged lawnmower. I say “alleged” because it was one of those ground-driven reel-type mowers. It would cut grass with ease only if the green stuff wasn’t any taller than a gopher’s knees. Anything higher than that would require more physical exertion than it took to build the Transcontinental Railroad. My eight-year-old self would be totally exhausted after making just one trip around the perimeter of our lawn.

Wait a minute! You don’t think that Dad…?

Sometime later an old, worn-out gas-powered lawnmower arrived at our farm. The thing proved to be a game-changer. Instead of huffing and puffing behind that cursed reel-type mower, I got to huff and puff behind the gas-powered mower amidst a cloud of blue smoke and grass clippings. By the end of the day, I would have more grass clippings in my hair than actual hair.

I had to admit, though, that it gave me great satisfaction to gaze across a freshly trimmed lawn with its perfect, laser-level carpet of grass. It still does.

I’ve been informed that our new zero-turn lawnmower will be arriving soon. I look forward to again enjoying the vista of a neatly mown, emerald-green lawn.

That is, if I don’t get bucked off in the process.

— Jerry’s book, “Dear County Agent Guy” can be found at www.workman.com and in bookstores nationwide