Friday, 13 May 2005

Painting vs. De-thatching, Round 1!

I don't think I want to de-thatch our lawn, ever again. Or ANY lawn, for that matter. Ever. For the following reasons:

1. The machine. That machine is annoying. It is scary. It makes lots of noise, requiring earplugs on the user's part. It stinks like gasoline fumes and leaves the user stinking like gasoline fumes.

2. The catcher tray had a bent frame that cost precious de-thatching time and ultimately left the job incomplete. The bag gets heavy when it is full of grass. It isn't self-propelled, meaning the Major General Music has to push it.

3. It led to "indentured servitude" as the Angela appropriately describes it. My dad, with his usual sore back, could not de-thatch the lawn and instead had a kid around who does not have a bad back. This took away from the Major General Music's opportunity to engage in some visual art and paint a cabin at the Angela's Hamlin estate. Of course, it included another "exchange" between the vassal (the Major General Music) and the lord (father figure, CODENAME="Dad") before the process could begin.

On a brighter note, I was able to dust off my thrashing stick and proverbially use it on the de-thatching machine and then proudly proclaim that to the folks at Tye-One-J when we returned the evil device to its birthplace.

Comments(3)

Yuck I don't like running machines that leak smelly gasoline fumes all over me. My Grandma and Grandpa keep a nicely manicured lawn but luckily(maybe) for me our family has other concerns to deal with like plumbing in cabins and all sorts of underground lines that must be put in working order. We have numerous lawns at the resort but the best treatment they ever receive is a good raking and regular summer mowing and weedwacking. I like to mow; not as fond of weekwacking though. I have some interesting weedwacker (or whippersnipper according to Steve Irwin) stories that perhaps I'll write about later this summer. I have to say that weighing painting vs de-thatching I'd choose painting anyday.

chickenlittle27

Did you actually tell those people that you verbally abused their machine with your figurative thrashing stick? What did they think of that?

chickenlittle27

I did actually mention that I had to use a thrashing stick on the machine. Unfortunately my thrashing stick was not given its due recognition. I think next time I'll just tell them I barked at the machine instead. WOOF! WOOF!

Major_General_Music