July is the longest month for mini-rants

[Cinnamon_Imp]

@Cinnamon_Imp

I was being a lazy gardener last weekend, and took the strimmer to the front lawn (it’s tiny) rather than carry the lawnmower all the way through the house to mow it.

The strimmer kept acting up, so after half an hour of unpicking excess cable it had decided to wind around its innards rather than actually cut grass, I gave up, took it back through the house to the shed in the back garden, and hauled the heavy lawnmower through the house like I should have in the first place.

Before starting to mow, I cleared some debris off the lawn, including a metal spring, so it wouldn’t chew the mowers innards and chucked it in our general waste bin.

It’s now the night before bin collection and I’ve realised why the strimmer cable kept unwinding and wrapping itself round the shaft annoyingly. It’s missing the spring that keeps it taut and in place.

Anyone want to help me reach down to the bottom of a 5 foot tall dumpster style wheelie-bin, past two lawns worth of cuttings and a weeks worth of household rubbish to try and find this sodding spring?

So after ^last months mowing mishap^, I broke the lawnmower yesterday.

I was about a week overdue cutting the back lawn, thanks to constant rain, and some of it had got to about knee-height.[1] Which meant I didn’t see the hidden tree stump which is nearly-but-not-quite flush with the lawn, and the screw holding the blade in place sheared off when the mower hit the wood. Thankfully I’d mowed enough that the strimmer (fixed back in June after some SDMB inspired bin-raking) could finish it off, but in about a week when it all needs done again, I’m in trouble.

[1] There seem to be three separate types of grass in the back lawn, one of which is okay, one of which is probably crabgrass, but whatever, that doesn’t bother me - it’s the meadow type grass that shoots straight up aiming for the sun that bugs me. It’d all get ripped out and returfed in my dreams!