Beau O'Brien at the wheel, right-on with the ride-on. But up to threequarters of his 50 lawns a week is done walking. Photo / Paul Taylor
Beau O'Brien at the wheel, right-on with the ride-on. But up to threequarters of his 50 lawns a week is done walking. Photo / Paul Taylor
When it comes to grass, a summer of almost unprecedented growth in Hawke's Bay means that Beau O'Brien is rolling in it.
"We're pretty much working sun-up to sun-down – it's crazy," said the Napier career lawn-mower.
O'Brien still mows an average of 50 lawns a week after he turnedBo's Mow's into a franchise operation with five arms and about 12 crews working around Napier, Hastings, Havelock North and Waipawa.
It's so busy he's ready and waiting to help anyone else who also wants to get into it.
Lawns usually parched brown and even stony by January and February are instead forested in lush green, juiced-up by rain which in parts of the region has been two to three times the averages for even the wettest months of mid-winter.
"The grass is growing like wildfire," said the 30-year-old who's already done 10 years of commercial mowing.
Jim Galloway, Raukawa farmer and Federated Farmers Hawke's Bay President, pictured in dry pasture in January 2020. It's been a far different story in 2022.
In the rural areas it's something pastoral farmers haven't seen for "many years," says Federated Farmers provincial president Jim Galloway.
"They certainly can't complain," he said, adding it's putting the farmers into good stead with plenty to store for the drier times, such as the droughts of recent years.
Behind it all are rainfall figures such as those for Hawke's Bay Airport, where there've been over 240 millimetres of rain this month, almost four times the February average of 62.3mm, great for the farmers but a bit of a pain for the average weekend leisure-time mower.
In the Napier CBD in December, there were 88.5mm, well up on the December average of 49mm, in November 56.5mm was just over the November average of 50mm.
By contrast, in July, when it should have been wet, the 17mm was a drop in the bucket compared with the July average of 81mm.
Born and raised in Napier, O'Brien started out from a background of leaving Napier Boys' High School to do a building apprenticeship.
Three years later, with a bit of telemarketing experience as well, he put the best of the physical and business learnings together and decided the grass was greener elsewhere, identified a new field of opportunity, and went lawn mowing.
He calculated he's mowed 25,000 lawns, from Bay View to Havelock North, the equivalent of mowing close to half the lawns in Napier.
The pace is so hot even the elder two of his five young daughters are helping out, keen to earn some pocket money.
He says those picking up the franchise – in other words becoming career lawnmowers – enjoy being their own boss. They range from 19-20 years to the mid-40s.
"It is a bloody hard job, and by Friday you're feeling it," he said, but he provides a 12-week induction and training.
It seems the mathematical mind turns over just like the mower.
He reckons he'd do 20-30kms mowing a day, which adds up to something over 48,000 kilometres over the past decade.
Surprisingly, he estimates that of his own work each month, 25 per cent would be ride-on, 75 per cent pushing.
