MMeM, Vol.2 Issue 5

A few years ago, I decided that all weed-wackers and trimmers were dead to me. See, every 18 months or so I would have to buy a new one at $100-$150 a pop. And before they would break down, they would inevitably need more string or some special oil mixture or whatever. "That's it!", I said. I'm done with trimmers. I am going to groom and shape my lawn so that I won't NEED to trim any of it. All I'd have to do is hop on the riding mower and go! At least that was the plan.

My plan worked well at first. What I decided to do was to use Round-Up Extreme™ on areas that I couldn't reach with the riding mower. These areas included the grass around trees or corners on my patio. As you can see from my efforts to cut all the grass right up to the corners of my patio, a new method was sorely needed. The first patio corner on the top below required my learning to remove and replace a 22" riding lawn mower blade.

Well, the plan has seemed to work fairly well and I no longer own a trimmer at all. I'm not beholden to the trimmer string manufacturers in that I don't have to research the size and type of string to put into the "trimmer of the year" with which I would undoubtedly be struggling. Trimmer manufacturers hold a special place in my heart. It's right next to Printer Toner manufactuers. They both charge immense fees for seemingly simple products. But, I digress.

I decided to spray very sparingly so as not to kill too much grass. This meant making a committment to spraying, waiting, and evaluating. This is a HUGE effort on my part. Patience is not a strong suit of mine. But I forged ahead .....with great patience. And as a side note, I should mention that this showed growth in my intellectual and emotional well-being. But again, I digress.

Being a man, I always live my life under the philosophy of "More = Better". Consequently, I decided that I was tired of being stuck to death with millions of pine needles when mowing around my pine trees on my riding mower. How many times would I spray, wait, and evaluate?

Here, things look pretty good...

Beginning to enter obsessing mode here...

And finally, full blown nuerosis sets in here...

Have I gone too far with the Round-Up? Yes? No? Maybe?

YIKES