Lawn mowing

No, I'm not reviving the blog. I'm turning it back to what it originally was, a way to keep track of when I did certain things to the house.

Oh, I bought a new house on Halloween of 2018. I'm in a town north of Frederick, MD. And today I'm gonna bitch about lawn care.

I guess I'm a true suburbanite now. I'm getting in a feud with an
elderly neighbor about lawns and worrying about lawn care.

In Westport I had an electric mower and would mow my lawn, the lawn of
a house I was renovating, up to 4 other lawns for elderly neighbors or
vacant houses, and about half of a sizable lot that neither the city
nor the state would claim. All the extra mowing was to deny rats
places to hide and to make the large lot useful.

But all those lawns had nobody to care for them so the grass was
generally pretty thin and my mower could cover some ground. In my new
house the previous owner, and the neighbors, hire lawn services. Which
is fine when you consider their ages. They all have 20 to 40 years on
me. Who wants to be pushing a mower in their 70's? But you could make
it easier on yourself. These services are fertilizing the lawns and
spreading herbicides and pesticides. Look, my lawn is like a carpet.
It really is. These services work. But it's not the 1950s anymore. The
neighbors are still worrying about keeping their yard a monoculture
and a perfectly manicured green carpet while we're concerned about
bees and runoff.

I expect my lawn to thin out a bit over the next few years as I stop
fertilizing. But for now I'm starting to see why mine is the only
electric mower. It's because I've gone through 4 batteries over 3 days
and am only about half way done with my first mow. My yard is only 1/3
of an acre! The grass is so thick, the mower has to work so hard, that
each battery charge lasts me only 10-15 minutes. So, exhaust 1
battery, then the next, then spend 3-4 hours to charge both batteries
back up. I'm hoping that later mows will go easier, but not counting
on it.

One neighbor I talked to warned me about dandelion seeds blowing from
the city property next to hers. She got real quiet when I said I don't
mind dandelions much and that they're a major staple of the diet of
spring bees. Another guy mentioned before the city council that
someone wasn't raking the needles from my pine tree or any of my other
leaves. Are you kidding me with this? I said "Hi, I think I'm the
needle guy you're talking about. If they bother you I can get them
up." They make a nice mulch for my garden since most plants I'm likely
to grow like acidic soil. I offered them to the neighbors first and
got horrified looks (which I'm starting to delight in). The leaves,
however, i'm just gonna mow into mulch. Once the mower battery got low
enough that it couldn't cut the main lawn I came back over and drove
over leaves repeatedly. Sure, a blanket of leaves can kill the lawn,
but the grass under the trees is already pretty thin just from getting
that much less sun.

So many people want their grass clippings hauled off in this county
that they are encouraging "Grasscycling". Really? We need a word for
just leaving the grass where it falls? No, they didn't come up with
the word, but I'd never heard of it until I got here.

When you tell someone around here that you moved from Baltimore they
go on for a bit about horrible it is there and how much happier we
must be out here. For the most part we agree, but we do have to throw
out a little "But, you know, we didn't see nearly as many Confederate
flags in Baltimore as we see around here."

I've been wanting a robot lawn mower ever since I saw the one my uncle
Steve has in his yard, but always had a hard time justifying it. Also,
I was worried it'd get stolen. I was planning to wait until I'd been
here a few years and my push mower was on it's last legs before making
the switch. But if the lawn doesn't get easier soon I may need to go
ahead. I really don't want to have to go back to something gas
powered. And if I'm gonna have to mow a dozen times a week I want to
make the droids do it.