Another Assembly Project

When we bought the home we currently live in we learned that the people we bought it from had used a service to keep the lawn healthy and green.  That explained why the lawn was so thick and full, especially the backyard.  But it was expensive and we choose not to continue to use the service.  The lawn continued to be healthy and thick but it gradually, over the years, declined and began to thin out and get weeds in it.  So last year we decided to start using the service again.  The lawn immediately responded by having the weeds go away and get thick again.  That plus we had a pretty wet spring this year, lots of rain means lots of growth. 

Alas, that meant when we mowed it there was a lot of clippings left laying all over the grass. 

That didn't look very good.

But it would be a lot of work to rake by hand, especially if it was going to be like this after every mowing.

We talked about what to do about it.  The best thing to do would have been to get a grass catcher but our backyard is fenced and the gate is not wide enough to allow the mower through if there was a grass catcher attached.  The grass catcher attaches on the side which makes it too wide to get through the gate.  We looked into widening the gate but that's pretty expensive.  We still want to do that but not right now.  Another option was to mow the backyard with the small mower, which has a grass catcher, but that would mean I could not do it, it's not a rider.  That left getting a lawn sweeper and going over the lawn after having mowed it.  So we got a lawn sweeper.

We shopped around for a lawn sweeper and the least expensive one we found, that looked like it would do the job well, was online so that's where we bought it.  It took a few days for it to arrive and when it got here it was quickly apparent that this was going to be another something that would require some assembly.  I was hoping that it would be not as difficult as the rototiller we put together last year, that was pretty challenging.  But after looking over the parts and instructions it didn't look like it was going to be quite that hard.

There weren't as many parts and the instructions weren't as long or as complicated.  The only down side appeared to be that it was all just pictures, no text or written instructions.  My experience has been that such instructions often leaves gaps.

But the first step appeared simple enough so I got started.  

The first step was easy, this was going to be great.  I was working by myself but if it didn't get any worse than this it wasn't going to be so bad.

The next step was as simple as the first, it went quick and easy.  But it soon became a little harder.  Several steps in, it became apparent that this was a two person job, not so much to understand what to do, but to manipulate the parts and get them in place.  Someone had to hold them in place while the other someone put the pins in place or tightened the bolts.

That's when I called Brombeere out to come help.  She was good enough to come, even though she was in the house and had planned on working on other stuff.

With the two of us it went better.  A little while later we had it all put together and ready to go.  

So I hooked it up to the mower and got started.

It took a little bit to lean how best to get it to work, remember there were no written instructions on how to assemble it or use it.  But a few times around the yard and I began to get the hang of it. And the other thing that helped was that I didn't need to cover the entire lawn, just where the clippings were, which tended to be a few feet from the outside edge of the lawn. 

 It takes two people to get it through the gate, it's too wide but by lifting it (it's not super heavy), it's possible to work it through the gate and into the backyard.

The lawn sweeper worked pretty good, the yard looked much better without all that "mown hay" laying around.

Of course, the swept up lawn clippings will have to be hauled off since Brombeere doesn't want them scattered in her garden.  But it's nice to be able to clean up the clippings when they get so long.  I try to mow once a week but sometimes our schedule or the weather make that difficult.  So it's nice to be able to have an option.