There is a running joke among small town news reporter: want to slow down a city council or village board meeting? Try to buy a mower, truck or tractor. Because everyone in a small town has an opinion, or knows a guy. The debate will take longer than Infrastructure Week.

So allow me to channel my inner councilman here a tad.

When I bought my house in 2010, it came with a very small yard. It takes about 15 minutes to mow. So, my Pops gave me a free, used mower he had around still. And for nine years, it worked fine. I definitely got my money’s worth.

It still runs mostly fine, but as you can see in the picture, the deck has a hefty gash in it. It now spits grass straight up into the air. Makes for a not-so-fun shower while mowing.

So, I set out to picking out a new mower. Sarah gives me a hard time for being a reviews researcher. If I switch toothpaste, I get a “oh, did Consumer Reports say so?”

With a small yard, I’ve been intrigued by battery-operated mowers for a while, but the reviews have not been kind on most—mostly due to short run times and struggling with thick grass. Still, I was able to rationalize that neither were really an issue with my yard.

So, I decided to pull the trigger. The last one was free. This one ran me $379.

Back to my Pops. He is a DeWalt man. So, I am a DeWalt man. I do not hold any deep felt tenants about quality, value or durability advantages over the Milwaukees or Black & Deckers of the world. Simply, dad has them, so it makes sense I do too, in case I need to borrow.

I am a photographer. It is similar to the DSLR world of Canon, Nikon, Sony, etc. Once you start with one system, you are locked in for life.

So when I saw DeWalt made a mower that used the same batteries as my drill and saw, I figured this should work. I needed a new battery anyway. This one came with two.

Once we figured out my old charger sucked, and not to run the mulcher and the grass bag at the same time, the mower has worked perfectly so far. Immediate starts, no oil, quieter. I will probably look to add a DeWalt weedeater next.

As for the battery life concerns, yeah, I would not go battery for a yard much larger than mine. 20-30 minutes is the top end I get out of two 5ah batteries.