61 lines
2.8 KiB
Plaintext
61 lines
2.8 KiB
Plaintext
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Department of Agriculture Bulletin #265
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(Some Notes on the Operation of Rotary Lawn Mowers)
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Power driven rotary lawn mowers are a great boon to shiftless
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suburbanites whose lawns are full of dandelions, buckhorn and other
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weeds too tall for the reel-type or conventional grass cutters.
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The rotary mower, however, is not an unmixed blessing. Unseen rocks
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and sticks, to say nothing of unburied bones, will raise hell with the
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blades. So will nails, bits of wire, and other metal debris. But
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these problems pale into insignificance when compared to the unhappy
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result of running a rotary lawn mower over newly deposited dog shit.
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Until you have had your shoes shined with pulverized dog shit you
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cannot appreciate the extent of this problem
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Cat shit, to be sure, smells worse, but cats, as everyone knows, are
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more careful to cover up their waste than are dogs. Moreover, cats do
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not shit as much as dogs, unless you have a very small dog and/or a
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very large cat.
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There are a number of approaches to the problem of animal excreta
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vis-a-vis the rotary lawn mower, but, unfortunately, no real solution.
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First, of course, you can try to keep dogs (and cats) away from your
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lawn. The only effective method for doing this is to buy a dog bigger
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and ornier than any other dog in the neighborhood and train him (a) to
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chase other dogs off your grass and (b) to shit on the neighbor's
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yards. There are obvious drawbacks to this method of combating the
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problem.
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First, of course, there's always the chance that one of your neighbors
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will hire a cow and train it to deposit cow flop on your lawn. It has
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been estimated that a rotary lawn mower operating at 3450 RPM can hurl
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a normal deposit of cow shit as high as your second story windows and
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over an area of 500 square feet. Building a fence is a possible
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solution, but expensive. It is, in addition, no good unless you can
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train your wife and children to keep the gates shut. And, too, some
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dogs will jump fences, even when full of shit.
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There are various commercial preparations, sold mostly to evil-minded
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old women, which are supposed to discourage dogs from (a) screwing lady
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dogs on your front stoop, or (b) peeing on your shrubs. These
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chemicals are useless since it is second nature for dogs to screw and
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pee, just as it is for most humans. Even if these preparations did not
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work, of course, they would not solve the basic problem created by the
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rotary mower.
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This leaves three other possible solutions, i.e.,
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1. Let the goddammed weeds grow.
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2. Move into an apartment and use the rotary mower as a
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window fan.
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3. Wear brown shoes when mowing and associate only with
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people who either do not mind the smell of dog shit or
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who are too polite to mention it to you.
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--
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