Fiirst Mow of the Season

[Bruce Tackett]

Broke out my trusty 80V Greenworks lawnmower today. I hear people all over the place mowing and trimming. Today is the first hot day of the year and I'm actually sweating.

My wife picked up some bags of mulch the other day from Ace and they told her that business is booming. They said that with everyone home from work, everyone is making home and lawn repairs and improvements.

[Mr Average]

I did my first mow 3 weeks ago, it was hard going in places because the grass was still very wet. 

[fredhutch]

Yeah, I've noticed here in NY a lot of yardwork going on, more than usual. Nobody has anything else to do.

[Bruce Tackett]

I know of one person who is taking advantage of this time to dot every i and to cross every t and to reflow text. That is, in between posting about " man emailed me".

[trog]

I did mine last week and filled the garden waste bin. Turns out the council aren't collecting garden waste for the foreseeable future, until the corona virus is sorted. They have also closed the tip, where the rubbish collections end up, so we can't take the cuttings there ourselves. The grass will need cutting again in a week or so. I guess I'll just have to dump it in a corner for later.

[mr potatohead]

Apr 8, 2020 7:58:25 GMT trog said:

........  The grass will need cutting again in a week or so. I guess I'll just have to dump it in a corner for later.

Are you familiar with composting and spontaneous combustion?

[Bob50]

I mowed my 2.5 acres one week ago in TX. Now after rains, I see I need to repeat this mowing soon.

[Bruce Tackett]

Apr 8, 2020 16:28:23 GMT Bob50 said:

I mowed my 2.5 acres one week ago in TX. Now after rains, I see I need to repeat this mowing soon.

That's the way it happens.

[bob44]

Yesterday was my first mow too. I mowed the front (top) of my yard and down by the sand mound where the grass was high. It is still too wet on the bottom part of the yard. Always look forward to the smell of cutting the grass and the wild chives.

[Bruce Tackett]

Apr 8, 2020 20:26:20 GMT bob44 said:

I mowed the front (top) of my yard and down by the sand mound where the grass was high.

I was wondering when you'd get to that.

[macky]

My mower isn't going very well at the moment. I've poured beer all over the lawn so the grass comes up half cut............

[chanduthemagician]

Apr 7, 2020 20:41:44 GMT Bruce Tackett said:

Broke out my trusty 80V Greenworks lawnmower today. I hear people all over the place mowing and trimming. Today is the first hot day of the year and I'm actually sweating.

My wife picked up some bags of mulch the other day from Ace and they told her that business is booming. They said that with everyone home from work, everyone is making home and lawn repairs and improvements.

I see the same thing here.  Social distancing at Home Depot is difficult.  They've gone to limiting the number of people in the store and lining up folks outside.   You can shelter from Covid-19, but not the honeydo list.   Of course I think some are seeing a sense of normalcy and working on the yard and house gives that to some.   

[pierinifitness]

I use to live in a home that was on 5 acres and the property land was lush green in the winter and then dried to a golden color in the late spring and into the summer and tail end of winter before the rain started.  I bought a John Deere 43-inch riding lawn mower and a industrial size killer weed whacker when I lived there and each year I'd have my annual ritual of having at it.  After some trial and error, I learned that it was best to wait as long as possible until the rain had stopped and if I did, I'd only have to mow it once.  The land wasn't irrigated.  This took patience because the height would be high and the landscape would look unsightly and if I waited too long, I might start getting a notice posted from the local fire department.  I wasn't the only one like this.

Some years I thought the rain was done and went at it.  It was a day and one-half effort to do it right but if I did, the finished landscape looked like a golden golf course; beautiful if you can believe it.  But, sometimes, there was more rain and this meant that my perfect job started to have some additional growth and this meant a second pass which was no fun.  When I got it right, it was one big job a year and I was done.

After doing this for over ten years, I decided to pay and found a great guy who did this to make extra money.  He was a butcher at a grocery store but had a decent side business mowing and weed whacking rural property like mine.  I think I paid him $450 (long time ago) and it was worth it for me.  If I ever lived there again (still own the home), I'd definitely hire someone to do it because I've become lazier than ever now that I'm older.  

That chore was worse than picking tomatoes, something I did as a younger kid when my Mom wanted me to have a cultural experience like she did as a young child growing up.

End of story.

The best part of the year, winter/early spring:



After a late spring annual mow and weed whack job

[Michael]

So You cut this once a year? I was cutting three lawns with a push mower for many years. One was my lawn and two older ladies lawns I did to help them. This will be the first year in many that I won't but cutting theirs.