Hondo Gravel

Yup recovered enough to start moving and my liver needs a major break Since my riding lawn mower has a bent pulley then what a better way to get back into fitness by push mowing about 10 acres. Like pushing a weight sled, great workout good sweat. Taking a break and having some cold water. Started yesterday and I feel like I got hit by a truck but that is a good thing. Get an endurance workout as I get some actual work done. Win Win I guess...

skijor

10 acres?! Eff that. Get some goats and take a nap.

indyfabz

By the time you finish if will be time to start over.

Hondo Gravel

Y’all right F this! I will bribe my friend Big Foot with a 12 pack and get some help fixing the riding mower deck.

DrIsotope

I was gonna say-- we live on 1 acre, and pushing the mower over just the back half, I cover about 3 miles to get it done (it's on Strava, so it happened.) Mowing ten acres would be something like walking two marathons.

tyrion

In Navy bootcamp we had to get up at 3:30 am, 6 days a week. Sundays we slept in until 5 am.

jgedwa

I have three acres that I regularly use an ancient walk-behind Gravely to mow. It has a large deck out front, and moves along at a very fast clip, and so takes only two hours. But still, that is a lot of time behind a beast like that. It is such an odd piece of machinery that I sometimes get cars pulling over to take pictures of me working with it.

Jim

FiftySix

Install several lawn mowing posts and let 'er rip.

Seattle Forrest

I've started up a hiking trail at 3:30 am and got to the other end a little after 5 am the following morning.

no motor?

I guess you won't be yelling at people to get off your lawn if they come over to help.

Rajflyboy

Is it at least a self propelled mower?

Hondo Gravel

No self propelled. Full out push . Good old fashion workout. But some old timers would argue.

FiftySix

Wow, I haven't pushed one of those since I was 18. I almost bought one of those years ago, but decided my yard isn't smooth enough to keep the wheels driving the blades.

Currently, I have a non-self propelled gas powered Honda my wife pitched in half for my 50th birthday 5 years ago. I had to order non-self propelled on the 'net as every Honda sitting in stores in this big ol' town is self propelled.

DrIsotope

I pushed a reel mower as a teen (never again) and a non-propelled Murray for about 15 years after that (never again.) The lil' 22" rear wheel drive Lawn Boy is enough work, when the southern edge of my property is an uninterrupted strip of "grass" (or at least green stuff) 20' wide and 300' long.

When I want to feel the punishment-- usually because I've let the green stuff grow too high-- I walk behind a Swisher Trim-n-Mow, which is not self-propelled, uses trimmer line as thick as a pencil, and will fire sticks and rocks at 3,000mph, usually right into my neck.

FiftySix

Lololol.

My simple 2-stroke line trimmer won't sling things faster than mach 2, but when it hits it stings like a mutha. I wear old prescription glasses when doing lawn work because new ones will have a new scratch on them after one lawn cutting job.

DrIsotope

I spent several years wearing a Husqvarna Chainsaw Helmet, one of these:


And it was fairly effective, but stuff would still end up either portaling through the mesh, or going under it and still getting my neck. Also-- hot as the bejeezus.

Best Swisher trimmer story ever: the back section of my property once held horses, so it's a fenced area about 110' x 60'. All things green love to grow there, and they grow fast. So I had duffed on it, and the field cover was all around 18" high. I'm walking behind the trimmer, and the going is slow, as it's basically trying to scythe it's way through, and big tufts are falling back into the cutting path and just flying everywhere. My kids were small then, and left stuff all over the place (still do, really) so it wasn't unusual to hit a toy or a ball or just anything taken from the house and abandoned in the yard. So as I'm thinking about this, a snake about 5' long literally flies out of the grass, directly at my face. I made an embarrassing noise, and let go of the trimmer with both hands. It was the rubber snake we bought right across from the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. In my days, that's the closest I've come to needing new pants.

Related: on an unseasonably hot March morning, the Swisher was both continually breaking line, and stalling at the least opportunity. I had been fighting it for several hours, and in a fit of blind rage punched the wall of my workshop, breaking the 5th metacarpal in my right hand. Worst 7 weeks of my entire life.

It is a tumultuous relationship I have with the Swisher, to say the least.

FiftySix

Laughed my arse off at the first part, Dr. Isotope.

Felt the pain on the last part.

Hondo Gravel

Yes weed eating is hazardous you will always find a bunch of nasty stuff that hurts.

nycphotography

holeeee hell... I just did the math on this.

1 acre = 43560 sqft, = or a square 209 ft x 209 ft. figuring 24" mower, that's 209 / 2.0 ft = 104 passes. 104 passes at 209 ft per pass = 21780 ft, or 4 1/8 miles!!!

But really, it's 2sqft mowed per ft walked, so 43560/2 = 21780 linear ft.

10 acres = 217,800 linear feet, or 41.25 miles.

Mowing 10 acres on a 36" riding mower is like driving 27 1/2 miles!!

Crazy.



I suspect that didnt actually happen lol.

Hondo Gravel

I mowed about 4 acres and said the heck with this! Just got off bike and going to get on the riding mower Today it is the weed eater that kills me. I should just use the shredder on the tractor but the mower makes such a better cut.

DrIsotope

That poor, poor LawnBoy. Too much is asked of him. Same third of the acre I usually attack, took about two and a half hours.

Hondo Gravel

Dang that was a jungle put some ranch dressing on that and you have a huge salad.

DrIsotope

It won't stop raining-- we've gotten 8 days of rain in the month of March, which is highly atypical. The green stuff is going NUTS.

I mowed this exact area 7 days ago, and it was just as long then. Ugh.