Mowing Lawns

The girls (ages eleven and fourteen) have mowed lots of lawns this summer and fall.  They've had the opportunity to mow for a neighbor and have been paid but they've also mowed my mom's lawn, gratis of course.

The paid job started out as just Kate.  My husband heard of the job and asked Jane, who was "meh" at the whole idea.  My husband then offered the job to Kate, who squealed loudly and started jumping up and down at the thought of earning money.   Of course we let Kate take the job. 

The first time the lawn was mowed, an expansive area more then twice the size of our yard, it took three trips and several mower repairs.  She really earned her money.  She gladly paid her tithing and she stuffed the rest away in her savings.

Most of my kids feel money burning holes in their pocket but Kate gets great joy in watching her stack of bills get bigger, and the sum amount increasing every few weeks.  She would have had the job to herself the whole summer but her bike wreck sorta wrecked that plan.

We had a talk with her sister, who went to mow while Kate's face was still swollen and stitched and her body was mostly bruises and road rash.  We encouraged Jane *cough, cough* to donate half the earnings to her sister, since Kate hadn't relinquished the job willingly.  Bless my oldest's heart, she did so willingly, even if she did feel the attention Kate received was a little unfair.  The next mowing, Kate's stitches were out and she felt much better, so the girls worked together, splitting the earnings.  We went ahead and allowed the girls to do that from then on.

It's been a good experience and after some supervision from their dad, it was confirmed that they were doing a decent job. 

It takes a lot to past their dad's standards.

Now my mom's yard, my mom is quick to state that she is perfectly capable of mowing her own yard but why should she when she can have someone else do it?  I happen to agree with that.  Of course having the girls mow has less to do with my mom getting out of it and more to do the girls learning to give service.  It's a wonderful opportunity.

My mom has a preference, one girl doing a much better job then other but I won't share that information here.

They're still learning.

I think this winter we need to send Ean over to his Mormor's house so he can shovel her driveway.  He needs to give service too. 

Speaking of which, Monday we spent our family home evening at my mom's house.  Kent fixed her toilet, it was leaking, Greg vacuumed the living room, Kate helped her dad and the two remaining boys swept the garage.

It was a good night.  Helping is good!