Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Mar 5, 2022 21:26:20 GMT -8
I bought a Greenworks corded lawn mower the other day. 12 amp. 18" cutting area. Side discharge or mulch. $139.00. It arrived Friday and I was able to give it a try on some fairly damp and thick grass. It performed well. I read a lot of reviews before deciding between a corded or battery-powered lawn mower. My concerns with the battery-powered mower were, 1) expense; 2) reliability of the batteries; 3) power of the batteries. I have a battery-powered weed eater and it does well. But it's maximum power comes in about the first 10 minutes of use. After that, it will run a long time but it slowly looses torque. New batteries typically cost a couple hundred dollars. And reviews are spotty in regards to how long they last. My concerns on the corded mower were: 1) How easy is it to use a corded mower? I have lots of experience with a corded air blower. The cord can be a pain in the butt. But it does supply power for as long as you need it. Surely I'm smart enough to figure this out. But before purchasing the corded lawn mower, I check out this guy's YouTube video. It sold me on it (especially as he's using almost the same model of mower). I don't need to bag the grass so leaving this option off saves expense and weight. And I already own a monster-long extension cord which I use with the existing air blower. This beats the hell out of trying to cut the field with a string trimmer. I would do that just because I had to do something. But I had long wanted to find a better solution. |
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Post by artraveler on Mar 5, 2022 22:31:47 GMT -8
My time with lawnmowers is long past. A gimpy leg thanks to football in high school and a crater in Golan Heights in 73 have rendered me with a limp and a cane. I've got a "guy" who come around every two weeks does the yard work and keeps the grass from growing an high as an elephants eye. If I were still in the lawn mowing business, so to speak, I'd defiantly consider the one you have. Remember cut the grass don't smoke it.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Mar 6, 2022 9:37:09 GMT -8
This thought was crossing my mind the other day when I was out shoveling pine needles, moss, and the assorted nature biological waste that had built up over the winter on the parking lot. It's a fairly large paved parking lot and I try to keep it clean. But trees surround it on all sides. And given how wet this winter was, I was amazed at how thick the muck (and moss) were.
So I'm out there with a flat shovel scraping it off the pavement. I probably filled the garden cart about 10 times. It's good exercise. And on a sunny day (if a cold one) with headphones, I can even pretend that I'm having a good time. But Father Time was reminding me (through my back, my knees, and my arms) that one day, perhaps soon, I will have a "guy" who can come around and be paid to do this work for me.
That's partly where the lawnmower comes in. It's only 46 pounds and easy to roll around. And it's sure a hell of a lot easier on the back than waving a weed eater around a sixteenth of an acre. The handles fold down and I found a place indoors to store it. As we're situated now in the building, there was barely room for it (which is perhaps the primary reason I was holding off).
And I'm guessing the lawn mower is helping to finance the invasion of Taiwan. That is, I assume it's made in China but I don't know one way or another.
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Post by kungfuzu on Mar 6, 2022 12:39:31 GMT -8
I long had an electrical edger which one had to plug into a power socket to run. It worked well, but I finally tired of the long tangle of cords and broke down and bought a battery-powered weed eater. My experience is much the same as yours as regards power. But since I mainly use it to edge my front yard, I find the 10 minute max. power period to be fine. I noticed that there are batteries which are more powerful and last longer than the one which came with the weed eater, but they are expensive and double the size.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Mar 6, 2022 13:08:11 GMT -8
Yeah, edgers and weed eaters certainly gain from being freed from a cord. For mowers and blowers, generally you're talking more about large, open areas. But a weed eater or edger usually has to get into all kinds of tight places.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Mar 6, 2022 13:51:23 GMT -8
This morning, about 11:00, when I looked out into the field (the one I mow with a new mower), I saw a deer. And then soon I saw another deer. And then another (a yearling, presumably). And then another yearling. It's about 2:00 and they're all still hanging out in my field soaking up the sun (when it pokes through). They don't seem too perturbed by me (must be conservatives) as long as I don't come too close. I'm just going to let them chill.  Larger ViewIt's strange to see this family of deer relatively deep in an urban area. (A busy 2-lane highway is just 20 yards beyond them in that shot.) There are patches of trees here and there for them to hide in. But do they live nearby? I don't know. |
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Post by kungfuzu on Mar 6, 2022 16:01:23 GMT -8
Do you know what type of deer these are? White tail?
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Mar 7, 2022 8:07:10 GMT -8
6 Types of Deer in North America (With Pictures)My guess is that you are correct, Mr. Flu. They were whitetail deer invading the property. But I am being unkind. Rather than invading, they just seemed to be having a nice day in the sun. I sent a couple of these pictures to my brothers. One of them mentioned replacing "loser" people with deer. That's an unkind characterization. But I pointed out that at least these deer, unlike "the homeless," are not leaving trash all over the place. I could have shooed the deer away, but why? I know that if I was growing vegetables in my garden they would be problematic. They kept to their end of the field and I kept to mine. I got my bike out yesterday and was fiddling around with it and the deer were unperturbed. But I imagine they have a very carefully-defined safety zone beyond which you cannot go before they run. Still, there are all kinds of people hand-feeding raccoons and such. I wouldn't doubt that people are feeding these deer. They seemed rather tame. I'm a bit old-fashioned about such things. I think animals are wonderful but we shouldn't try to turn wild animals into pets. I thought about throwing these deer a carrot but realized I would be contributing to the delinquency of an ungulate. Let the deer be deer and enjoy them for what they are. These four deer visited a neighbor's yard just up from me for a little while. But they basically hung around my place all day. They were there until at least 6:00 pm and then disappeared soon after.
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Post by kungfuzu on Mar 7, 2022 9:28:26 GMT -8
I think it is cool that you have deer visiting your property. The closest I have come to that is when, as a kid, I vacationed in Colorado with my family. The cabin my father rented for several years in a row was miles out of Estes Park in the mountains. We would see deer fairly regularly.
Here is Plano, we sometimes get a bobcat on our patio. Earlier this winter, I saw paw prints in the snow on our patio. Before that I surprised a mother bobcat and her cub in our back yard. They scooted away fast. That was pretty neat as well. Every now and then, people are warned about leaving their small pets in the backyard over night.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Mar 7, 2022 10:06:47 GMT -8
I was reading online about bobcats just now and they are extremely rare to see. I saw one once while up at Green Mountain. It was sitting in the road as I came around the corner on my bike and it quickly skedaddled into the nearby woods. Never seen one before or since. There seem to be a lot of different shapes for the bobcat. Some photos I've seen show them as somewhat lean and sleek. But the one I saw was (to my mind) the stereotypical deep-furred and pudgy:  |
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Post by kungfuzu on Mar 7, 2022 10:22:53 GMT -8
The bobcats around here are both darker and sleeker than the one in your photo. I have seen them a number of times. Once, I saw one going into the street drain which is in front of my house. The drain is very similar to the one below.  Apparently, the bobcats use the drainage system to navigate Plano. The drain in front of my house connects to the creek in the photo below. The creek is the curving green line which moves from the upper-left-hand corner to the lower-right-hand corner of the photo. I live on the street moving north and south at the far left of the photo. So you can imagine how extensive the drainage system is and how easy it is for the bobcats to stay out of sight if they wish.  |
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Mar 7, 2022 10:58:02 GMT -8
That can't be good news then for the rats that live in the gutter.
Given that the average temperature of Western Washington is probably significantly lower than Texas, I can see why our bobcats would have thicker fur and be pudgier.
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Post by artraveler on Mar 7, 2022 11:42:19 GMT -8
We would see deer fairly regularly. For several years I lived in Winslow AR. jut south of Fayetteville, a rural community of about 300. Winslow is distinctive as the first town in Arkansas to have an all female mayor and city council in the 1920s. It is also the home of about 15 different churches, exemplifying the philosophy of you go to yours I'll go to mine and we will both boycott the SOB on the hill. At the time I was a commuting around the state to Memphis and Shreveport and often hit back roads. The Arkansas dept of Fish & Game was adamant that there were no mountain lions (panthers) in Arkansas. Coming home from Shreveport one evening I turned off at Chester to take 71 home to Winslow. As I was driving up the rural road to 71 a rabbit flashed across the road followed by a full grown mountain lion. The cat caught the rabbit in the middle of the road, turned looked a me and disappeared into the wood. It was about the same time Fish and Game decided there just might be a few lions in the hills. We regularly had a herd of deer grazing in the back yard, also possums, snakes (vipers) and harmless and of course the ever-present skunk and coyote. Rural living has always had some wildlife challenges. |
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Post by kungfuzu on Mar 7, 2022 12:14:39 GMT -8
We see the occasional coyote and possum here north of Dallas. The animals are so used to humans that they sometimes just stop, look at you for a second or two and walk away. This has happened to me with both coyotes and a bobcat. I think one of the reasons that we runs into coyotes and bobcats is that we have many rabbits around here. Cottontails are ubiquitous. This is a common sight in my yard, especially at night. Normally, there are more than one.  |
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Mar 7, 2022 12:18:15 GMT -8
It's cool that you got to see a mountain lion. There is a whole catalog of creatures living amongst us that we rarely see. Lots and lots of critters. One thing I've never seen is a skunk although they (the striped skunk) apparently range across the entirety of North America, including much of Canada.  But I have certainly smelled them a time or two...mostly as part of road kill, I believe. |
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Post by Brad Nelson on Mar 7, 2022 12:30:41 GMT -8
I remember one time hiking up at Mount Rainier. There in the distance was some creature sitting boldly on a rock. It wasn't a bear. It wasn't a cougar. Later research suggests it was a mountain beaver ( Aplodontia rufa, not to be confused with Boom-boomus Babus). Mt. Rainier is clearly in its range. Biggest damn rodent I have ever seen. And although you can find plenty of beaver dams (different family apparently than the mountain beaver which are apparently related to a squirrel), you'll rarely see a beaver.  |
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Post by kungfuzu on Mar 7, 2022 12:55:29 GMT -8
Now that's a mountain beaver I would like to see live.  I have seen the other mountain beaver a couple of times in Colorado. I recall that they were not uncommon in the Rocky Mountain National Park. |
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Post by artraveler on Mar 7, 2022 14:43:11 GMT -8
One thing I've never seen is a skunk although they (the striped skunk) apparently range across the entirety of North America, including much of Canada. They can be found almost anywhere. In 1986 we were living in Sacramento. We had just purchased a house on a cull- de- sac that backed up to a storm drainage culvert. I was working graveyard shifts running a bakery and my wife called me about 0200. She was screaming that buddy, our dog, had been skunked. I left work and headed home. I could smell the skunk almost a block away. It seems my wife had gotten up and let the dog out to pee. He had scared up a pair of skunks passing through our backyard and gotten sprayed. Dog and skunks went opposite directions my wife, for reason passing understanding, let the dog in the house and locked him in the second bath. I came home just as my son, then about 5, was crawling out of his room. The smell was so intense, not dissimilar to burning tires, he thought the house was on fire and following what he learned in school was crawling along the floor to the front door. My wife was crying in the living room, the dog was howling and barking in the bathroom. I spent an entire day cleaning the dog to get most of the smell out. We had to repaint the bathroom and clothes, towels and my son't new shoes had to be thrown out. For about a year when the dog got wet the faint wisp of skunk renewed itself. |
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Post by kungfuzu on Mar 7, 2022 14:50:30 GMT -8
I have heard that one way to clean away the smell is with tomato juice. Don't know if it is true or not, but I believe I would try just about anything in such a situation.
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Post by artraveler on Mar 7, 2022 18:07:21 GMT -8
Tomato juice was my first recourse, but later I went to a mixture of vinegar and water which did a better job. I think tomato juice does work mainly due to the acid in tomato tends to neutralize the protein in the skunk spray, vinegar does the same and it is much less expensive. The amazing thing is the length of time it took to get the smell off the dog, and to get it out of the bathroom. It took two coats of high gloss bath paint to eliminate the smell in the bathroom. I seriously thought of shaving the dog. He never went near a skunk again.
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