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I really want automatic mowers that work, I’d pay $TEXAS to not have to mow right now or pay some landscapers to do it. Some day after we get actual good floor cleaning robots, I guess.
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May 12, 2021 04:40
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devmd01 posted:Something with a Honda engine. Next question! I was going to buy something with a Honda engine to mow my lawn - because the ragged-to-gently caress John Deere L100 the PO left is way overkill for the actual mowable lawn - but at this point an Ego 56V with battery and charger is the same price as a new self-propelled Honda. Nicest mower I've ever used and I'll probably never have to do anything other than charge the battery.
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May 12, 2021 06:18
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Electric mowers own.
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May 12, 2021 07:18
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:I really, really, love my Honda mower. Even with old gas after all winter it starts on the first or second pull every time. I got a brand new Honda, my first new mower ever, and I felt like I was going to yank the cord off starting it. I was used to my old Toro with a Briggs & Stratton needing 3 or 4 hard pulls instead of one easy pull. The mulched grass clippings that come outta this thing are nice and fine too with the twin blade system, I'm going to decimate the fall leaves this year.
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May 12, 2021 10:50
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Platystemon posted:Electric mowers own. I've been wanting one of the Ryobi electric riders since testing out my cousin's. But I am a cheap bastard. Maybe next time my current 21 year old rider breaks, it might be time to let it go...
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May 12, 2021 14:21
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Hed posted:I really want automatic mowers that work, I’d pay $TEXAS to not have to mow right now or pay some landscapers to do it. Some day after we get actual good floor cleaning robots, I guess. Dude at work rigged up his lawnmower with servo controls and steers it about like an RC car from his house. He did this mainly because he has a steep slope that sucked to mow, but it worked so well he just kept it and does the whole thing. Not a huge lawn, and you're still steering it, just not right at it.
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May 12, 2021 15:03
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Platystemon posted:Electric mowers own.  This—an 80v brushless battery powered electric mower will chew through just about anything. I got rid of my Honda self propelled mower for a Kobalt 80v Push mower on end of season clearance for half off, and it is hands down the best mower I’ve ever had. The 5 Amp Hour battery lasts over 3 full mows of my postage stamp lot, and works great on tall thick grass, even if it’s still kinda soggy after a week of rain. One touch height adjustment, stupid light and easy to turn, no more annual oil changes and spring maintenance, no more stale gas and storing gas, the mulching is great, and I love how adjustable the bar is. My old honda push mower just didn’t get up to the same ergonomic height, it literally hurt my back after mowing, especially with all my curves and turns, having to bodily heave the stupid thing around. Plus the batteries are just rebranded greenworks batteries, so there’s a number of semi compatible brands that’ll take the same batteries with the minor plastic tab removal on the battery case. Never again buying a gas mower or trimmer. Oh, and even the 80v leaf blower is great! Does churn through battery, but it gets the job done and is completely hassle free.
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May 13, 2021 21:22
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My 1990s craftsman just ate another belt and now I want one of those stand behind Toro mowers
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May 15, 2021 00:45
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Don’t know if this is the right thread to ask about this, but I was hoping to get some advice about using bricks for a raised garden bed. Over the last few years I’ve excavated almost 200 unmortarted bricks in my back yard, stamped with dates ranging from the 20’s to the 30’s. I need to build some raised beds for some hop rhizomes sitting in the fridge, and I thought these would be perfect. However, I don’t want to mortar these right now because I would like to assemble these quick to plant the hops and I want to live with the bed for a year before deciding if I want to make any changes to location or design. My thought process was I could stack these and drive some rebar through the holes to anchor them into the ground a little bit and loosely hold the stack together so when the ground heaves over the winter it has some room to move without destroying the bricks. I just want it to last for a year or two and be able to pull it back apart, shovel out the dirt, and rebuild it with a proper concrete footer and mortar the bricks together when I have time for that project. I’ve got some perforated drain tile to abut next to the edge to hopefully alleviate some of the hydrostatic pressure, and I plan on wrapping it up in some landscape fabric to prevent it from clogging. I didn’t want to put gravel over top since it would be a pain to separate it when I redo it. Here’s a dry fit of what I’m talking about :  Is this an alright idea, or am I going to crack these bricks by putting these concrete forming stakes through the holes and subjecting it to retaining wall pressure? The height of all this is only a foot and a half, and about 2’ deep. E: I was also thinking of using a bead of caulk to adhere the top layer since that would be easy to undo and loosely hold stuff together Catatron Prime fucked around with this message at 16:32 on May 15, 2021 |
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May 15, 2021 16:29
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Finally kicked the walk-behind to the curb (for places this won't navigate through)
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May 15, 2021 18:50
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The sod I put in has come in nicely. Now that the weather is nice my wife planted a few more things in the front. This pretty much concludes the re-work of the front that we’ve been doing since we moved in two and a half years ago. Now that everything is planted and I put in a low profile downspout I picked up 22 bags of river rock from Lowe’s to fill in everything. I also touched up the left side of the garage with the low profile downspout I put there.   The back needs a little bit more work before it’s done, but the work is slowly in progress. E: allllll this poo poo got ripped out for grass. 
devmd01 fucked around with this message at 19:27 on May 16, 2021 |
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May 16, 2021 19:17
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I dug out a bush today. It's tough to tell from this photo, but that hole is about two feet deep in the center. http://imgur.com/a/7WuVEGy I cut it out, so there's a lot of bare root ends that I suspect will start to sprout again eventually. I want to just turn this area into grass. Here's my tentative plan: 1. Pour [insert chemical here] into the hole 2. Cover with Topsoil 3. Plant grass seed Do you think this would work, and what could I put in there that would stop the roots and anything else from growing? I've long heard the expression regarding salting the earth, so can I literally just pour a bunch of iodized kitchen salt in the hole and put dirt on top?
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May 16, 2021 19:44
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Proceed directly to step 2 and 3. There's no real need to do anything else. If the roots sprout anything it will get mowed with the rest of the grass and eventually they'll run out of energy and stop doing it.
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May 16, 2021 20:04
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Works for me!
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May 16, 2021 21:43
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The wind blew over my crappy old mailbox so I'll be putting up a new one. I guess the only question I have is what should I use to stake it down while the concrete dries so it doesn't tip over?
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May 17, 2021 04:55
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Hotel Kpro posted:The wind blew over my crappy old mailbox so I'll be putting up a new one. I guess the only question I have is what should I use to stake it down while the concrete dries so it doesn't tip over? Nothing. You should set the post and let it cure overnight before putting the box on it. Standard concrete mix (like quickcrete 5000) will hold the post just fine while it sets. If you really need extra to hold it up just use whatever scrap wood you may have laying around and attach it to the post at an angle to the ground in two directions. Should be much more than enough.
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May 17, 2021 05:10
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Not quite 100% done, but I added topsoil to about half the planter and everything seems to be happy and holding well for now: Also picked up an arch so the hops I planted in the bed there can trellis up and over it. Might redo the transition to the side garden as well, maybe add some matching metal decorative fencing beside the arch so it’s not completely out of place. On a side note, the birds have absolutely been loving the feeder and birdbath, after ignoring both all last summer. Also thought this was interesting-we have possibly multigenerational robin(s) that have been coming back to the same nest every year for at least eight years now, since before we moved in according to Google Streetview. Here’s a shot I just took this morning:  And another shot from the google car when the previous owners lived here:  The previous owners removed the nest before the sale, but the robin came back and rebuilt it the next spring, and I haven’t had the heart to take it down ever since. I still feel horrible about moving a Morning Dove’s nest in my gutter to the crook of a nearby tree while putting gutter guards on. All of this was gently done under Mama Bird’s watchful supervision, but she never came back to the nest and now I get to live with that guilt.
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May 17, 2021 17:49
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We had a robin nest under the deck last summer. Once the chicks hatched, I think they had fledged out in just under two weeks? Nobody has come back to reuse the nest (yet)
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May 17, 2021 22:00
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OSU_Matthew posted:On a side note, the birds have absolutely been loving the feeder and birdbath, after ignoring both all last summer. Also thought this was interesting-we have possibly multigenerational robin(s) that have been coming back to the same nest every year for at least eight years now, since before we moved in according to Google Streetview. I think this is a robin thing, maybe? I had a pair of them that showed up and nested and had a bunch of cute little baby robins last year under the eave of my shed. The nest stayed up there all year and then about a month and a half ago they showed up again, pushed the old nest out of the eave onto the ground and built a new one in the same spot. Now they're hanging around in there like they've got eggs again.
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May 18, 2021 00:58
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Wallet posted:I think this is a robin thing, maybe? I had a pair of them that showed up and nested and had a bunch of cute little baby robins last year under the eave of my shed. The nest stayed up there all year and then about a month and a half ago they showed up again, pushed the old nest out of the eave onto the ground and built a new one in the same spot. Now they're hanging around in there like they've got eggs again.  I always thought birding was an old person’s obsession, but I’ve slowly become more and more smitten with learning more about birds and plants over the last few years and could totally see myself just happily sitting and watching birds someplace naturey gently caress I’m getting old 
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May 18, 2021 03:04
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My partner put a bird feeder into our yard and that poo poo is better than TV. I can't leave! What if a bird I haven't seen before comes to the feeder! And I need to make sure that the squirrel doesn't get into it! THE GRACKLE PUFFED ITS FEATHERS AND WENT GREEEESH!!!!
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May 18, 2021 05:24
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CommonShore posted:My partner put a bird feeder into our yard and that poo poo is better than TV. We started putting out suet last year to see if we could get some woodpeckers and the squirrels just went absolutely loving bonkers for it. I got a box of the cakes with capsaicin in them (home depot carries them pretty cheap around here) and rotated them in with the regular suet for a couple of months. It seems that as well as being good at solving puzzles squirrels also have pretty good memories because I haven't seen a single one near the feeders this year despite only having used regular suet since. The squirrels have been replaced with 8 or 10 or 12 woodpeckers that come around all the time and hang out now. A couple of the red-bellied males are getting massive, but I'm really blown away by just how balsy the downy woodpeckers are. When I'm out there gardening and stuff they'll chill out three or four feet away like I don't even exist while most of the other birds blow out immediately when I get anywhere near them. Birds are pretty cool. Have a picture of some unidentified bird babies someone decided to deposit last year in a lovely little dwarf evergreen thing the previous owner left behind:   
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May 18, 2021 14:13
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Pasting from the Horticulture thread, which was apparently the wrong one for this: Is this the right thread to ask about intentionally killing plants? I'm sure I can find a ton of different answers on Google, but I'd greatly appreciate experienced advice on the best way to deal with buckthorn. We are on a wooded 2.5 acres, and it is pretty prevalent in all sizes up to full trees. I would love to get rid of what's there and keep it as buckthorn-free as possible. Wallet posted:The squirrels have been replaced with 8 or 10 or 12 woodpeckers that come around all the time and hang out now. A couple of the red-bellied males are getting massive, but I'm really blown away by just how balsy the downy woodpeckers are. When I'm out there gardening and stuff they'll chill out three or four feet away like I don't even exist while most of the other birds blow out immediately when I get anywhere near them. Birds are pretty cool. Same experience with the downy woodpeckers here. When I was on the extension ladder trimming the tree the feeder hangs from in the fall, one of them landed on the tree and hopped around close enough that it was within my armspan if I had leaned a bit.
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May 18, 2021 14:40
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Blowjob Overtime posted:Pasting from the Horticulture thread, which was apparently the wrong one for this: I recently cleared about 2 acres of tag alders out of an old orchard. Cost me $700 to pay a dude in a skid steer with a giant grinder to mulch it all up. Future maintenance will involve brush hogging it yearly. Glyphosphate (roundup) is one option, but it only works on greenery, not seeds. Minnesota DNR has a good write up on it : https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/terrestrialplants/woody/buckthorn/control.html
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May 18, 2021 16:12
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Yooper posted:Minnesota DNR has a good write up on it : https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/terrestrialplants/woody/buckthorn/control.html This is very comprehensive, thanks!
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May 18, 2021 22:30
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Wallet posted:We started putting out suet last year to see if we could get some woodpeckers and the squirrels just went absolutely loving bonkers for it. I got a box of the cakes with capsaicin in them (home depot carries them pretty cheap around here) and rotated them in with the regular suet for a couple of months. It seems that as well as being good at solving puzzles squirrels also have pretty good memories because I haven't seen a single one near the feeders this year despite only having used regular suet since. I just sprinkled some cayenne pepper into the bird feeder and the squirrel shoved its face right into it but now I feel cruel because it was visibly in pain 
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May 19, 2021 14:46
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I have a beautiful ancient maple tree on the property that I'm very fond of. Unfortunately the weather this year has made it very happy and it has released an absolute fuckload of helicopters over the last two days. Everything near it is blanketed in them and even on the opposite side of the house there's an absolute fuckload. The ones on the lawn will get mulched by the mower but there's a ton in the gardens and poo poo. I'm thinking my best bet is probably to buy a leaf blower to get rid of them because I'm sure as poo poo not dragging a rake through my ornamentals and they'd decompose before I could get them all out by hand. Any thread recommendations for good electric blowers these days? CommonShore posted:I just sprinkled some cayenne pepper into the bird feeder and the squirrel shoved its face right into it but now I feel cruel because it was visibly in pain Life is hard for a squirrel.
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May 19, 2021 14:52
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Wallet posted:
I picked up the EGO 5AH /630 CFM blower and it’s nice for quick work. It has variable speed and higher speed will drain the battery faster. Originally I bought the $150 2.5 AH version but never opened it and returned it for more juice. I’m happy I did because even with this one I ran out of battery half way through blowing a bunch of thatch around. I don’t have many leaves so I bought this mostly to clean up grass clippings and other odds and ends. If your yard is big and full of leaves gas may still be the way to go.
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May 19, 2021 15:14
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One of my sprinkler valves keeps getting stuck open after the controller turns the solenoid off. It doesn't happen all the time. If I give the valve a smack, it turns off. I have taken the valve apart and replaced the gasket. Not sure what the next step would be. I would like to avoid replacing the whole valve if possible. Any ideas?
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May 19, 2021 15:26
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Are you already invested in a battery ecosystem I.e. Milwaukee, ryobi, etc? Just get the best available one that works with your batteries, it should be adequate.
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May 19, 2021 15:36
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FogHelmut posted:One of my sprinkler valves keeps getting stuck open after the controller turns the solenoid off. It doesn't happen all the time. If I give the valve a smack, it turns off. I have taken the valve apart and replaced the gasket. Not sure what the next step would be. I would like to avoid replacing the whole valve if possible. Any ideas? Do you know what kind of valve it is? The ones that I have need power to stay open (so if you lose power while the sprinklers are on they don't just keep going) and they have a replaceable solenoid that screws on to them. From what I recall there is a piston under there that opens the valve and it looks like a part that could possibly get gunked up to the point that it could jam/might could use a spray of some silicone lube or similar.
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May 19, 2021 17:00
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Motronic posted:Do you know what kind of valve it is? The ones that I have need power to stay open (so if you lose power while the sprinklers are on they don't just keep going) and they have a replaceable solenoid that screws on to them. From what I recall there is a piston under there that opens the valve and it looks like a part that could possibly get gunked up to the point that it could jam/might could use a spray of some silicone lube or similar. Its one of these - https://www.homedepot.com/p/Orbit-3-4-in-Plastic-FPT-Automatic-Anti-Siphon-Zone-Valve-57623/203020016 Power stays on for it to stay open. I'll probably just buy a whole new valve and replace everything into the existing one except the body that's attached to the pipes. FogHelmut fucked around with this message at 19:20 on May 19, 2021 |
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May 19, 2021 19:17
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FogHelmut posted:Its one of these - There ya go. Unscrew that part with the wires on it and make sure the actuator isn't sticking.
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May 19, 2021 22:43
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Wallet posted:Any thread recommendations for good electric blowers these days? Speaking of squirrels, Mark Rober’s latest Squirrel obstacle course video on YouTube is pretty great Last year I picked up the Lowes Kobalt 80v blower on end of year clearance for 115$ honestly just for the battery, but turns out the blower itself is pretty friggen fantastic and I can’t believe I haven’t bought one sooner. I actually just used it to clean up a whole smattering of helicopter seeds in my own backyard and have zero complaints. I think any 80v battery blower should fit the bill quite nicely
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May 20, 2021 04:10
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devmd01 posted:Are you already invested in a battery ecosystem I.e. Milwaukee, ryobi, etc? Just get the best available one that works with your batteries, it should be adequate. Yeah, I ended up just doing this. We'll see if going with 18v instead of 40v was a mistake but the thing seems to push more than enough air and I already have a bunch of batteries/chargers.
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May 20, 2021 14:28
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Went ham on the bushes on the side of my garage last night. They get sun all day and this isn’t the first time I’ve cut them back, but never this drastically. Limb pickup scheduled with the town for Monday! 
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May 21, 2021 14:50
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Wallet posted:Yeah, I ended up just doing this. We'll see if going with 18v instead of 40v was a mistake but the thing seems to push more than enough air and I already have a bunch of batteries/chargers. 18v is fine for most stuff but you need to have a lot of patience and batteries if you’re dealing with a lot of leaves.
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May 21, 2021 15:19
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I was tired of mowing/trimming around the utility boxes in my yard up by the neighbors and it looking like poo poo. I pulled out all of the grass to trim up the edges, planted some low-profile ground cover, and covered it all with several bags of river rock.
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May 28, 2021 17:00
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Does anyone have any information about dealing with leachate from a reclaimed dump? Im in Ulster county NY and basically theres a small puddle of yellow water forming at the base of a reclaimed land fill, and it just about borders my property. Should we just call the DEP and have them look at it right? My father wants to dig a drainage trench to let it go into the local road rainwater system. Thats loving dumb right?
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Jun 7, 2021 03:19
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Gaj posted:Does anyone have any information about dealing with leachate from a reclaimed dump? Im in Ulster county NY and basically theres a small puddle of yellow water forming at the base of a reclaimed land fill, and it just about borders my property. Should we just call the DEP and have them look at it right? My father wants to dig a drainage trench to let it go into the local road rainwater system. Thats loving dumb right? Yes, call the DEP. There's a chance there's a sign with the contact info on or near the site. I agree it's loving dumb to try and fix it yourself, you could be putting nasty poo poo into the local watershed and it doesn't address the potentially failing landfill cap.
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Jun 7, 2021 03:27
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