This blog post could also be titled, "Save a little, spend a lot."
Instead of paying someone to come aerate and topseed our lawn, we decided to do it ourselves. I called around, found a machine that I could fit in the back of our minivan to rent, and bought the grass seed and fertilizer.
After participating in many Scout fundraisers involving aerating, Ryan tackled the project with no problem, and I felt very satisfied afterward having saved us at least $100-200 off of what we would have been charged had someone come and done it for us.
The next morning, I took the machine back. I had to do a u-turn to get into the rental place, and when I accelerated onto the highway, I heard a loud smash. It turns out we put the aerater back into the minivan with the handle pointing to the back window (as oppposed to the way the rental place had put it into my van the day before with the handle pointing toward the seat). As a result, my acceleration sent the aerater straight through the back window of the minivan.
So...an additional $330 later, we have a new back window, and our aerating project became a very expensive do-it-yourself adventure. You win some, you lose some.
