An unofficial chapter of the popular Dull Men's Club.
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Use a search engine, a tradesperson, Reddit, friends, a specialist Facebook group, apps, Wikipedia, an AI chat, a reverse image search etc. to answer simple questions, identify objects or get advice. We accept very few questions, and they must be over topics much more difficult than what is easily discoverable with a search. Also see rule 1, “comment baiting”.
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8. All polls must have an "Africa, by Toto" option. Why? Because we hear the drums echoing tonight.
I remember excitedly buying a lawn mower. I had a small patch of grass. I would tend to it. It was a step up.
Fuck that. I hated it after the first time. Yardwork sucks unless you want to do it. If you enjoy gardening (my mother when I was a teen), cool. If you just need to maintain, meh.
Sigh.
Wanting to do it is only half the battle. I want to. But every week? Twice in the spring? No way. There’s always a point where it becomes drudgery, but last summer I finally relented and hired someone
You could hire a landscaper to mulch it and plant native ground covers and other native plants (or do it yourself). Very low maintenance. And you could have a landscaper come out again a couple times a year if you don't want to do that either.
That's what the landlord did. I only had to mow it a few times.
Make it a game and have fun.
How can you mow it all without crossing any spot twice?
How can you make a pretty pattern?
What's the shortest path?
What's the longest path?
Can you finish before the motor stops?
How quickly can you clean the blades?
What changes if you sharpen the blades?
Etc
You are right but when it comes to lawn I really struggle to care.
The closest to gamifying that I get is "what is the minimum effort I can make / money I can apend while not being the worst on the street or drawing comment.
I love mowing lawns, kinda do it as a side hustle to my usual business.
Simply because I love listening to audiobooks and I never get any fucking time!
I Iove this so much...
How's it do on hills? I have one that's AWD but it still takes forever to do my whole yard. I have about a 1 acre plot that's very hilly so it takes me ~1.5 hours.
My lawn is not that large, its just on a 30° incline, and pushing the mower up that hill in 40°C days, while brutal, was manageable.
We've had torrential rain periods for the last few months, so instead of the lawn growing 2-3cm a week, it's been growing 7-10cm a week. This meant that I've had to progressively mow it 4x to get the job done.
New lawnmower has twin blades, so it makes it through the length much more easily, and I can set the front wheels 1/2 a setting lower to help the mower get through the crazy growth.
The cross cutting and cloth bag means it doesn't clog the catcher instantly and I don't need 4x passes to return the lawn to useable.
The self propelled bit is rather magical though. It takes itself up the hill.
It does use a little more fuel that the last one, but I'm ok with that.
We've had a ton of rain the past few summers too. Not only does the grass grow quickly, it also means the lawn stays wet longer making it tougher to mow(especially on your own schedule).
Interesting putting the front wheels lower helps, I would have thought the opposite. I'll have to try that.
The old guy that runs the mower shop I went to (had to drive 25kms) suggested it.
He said that all the Australian mowers with a "flat" deck already have this tilt built into it by default, so I had to manually do that on this one that let's you set each wheel height independently.
Apparently, if I remember correctly, it helps with the length as the grass is cut earlier and is then above the blades sooner, rather than clogging it from underneath, and the rear of the cut path isn't fighting grass as much and can create the vacuum to get the clippings into the bag.
As the model I chose has a "Blade Brake" that lets me stop the blades but keep the mower running, the only thing he suggested to me was not to start the blades mid path, and if I had to, to lift the front up as I engaged the blades, as they lift just a little as they come up to speed.
I forgot a few times, and I can see the few little areas where it cuts a little bit shorter than desired, so it was good advice.
I chose that shop as they had the models I wanted to compare in stock, and the guy who owned the place and his wife both seemed to know the models inside out on their short YouTube videos...
The other places I rang just told me they didn't carry any stock, and that everything I needed was on the Honda webpage, so you can probably binder stand why I drove the extra distance.