|
|
Post by inger on Aug 6, 2022 15:59:03 GMT -5
Anyone ever used one of these when the grass and weeds were too tall to mow? These were standard use for me to clear ditches and banks of weeds and grass that the mower couldn't reach. This was before string weed-eaters. It likely engrained bad habits that I had to overcome learning to play golf. The blade was serrated steel.  Many hours using those weed whips. Lots of blisters, too… |
|
|
|
Post by rizzuto on Aug 6, 2022 16:04:15 GMT -5
Anyone ever used one of these when the grass and weeds were too tall to mow? These were standard use for me to clear ditches and banks of weeds and grass that the mower couldn't reach. This was before string weed-eaters. It likely engrained bad habits that I had to overcome learning to play golf. The blade was serrated steel. Many hours using those weed whips. Lots of blisters, too… My dad said I used them incorrectly, that I was not allowing the blade to do the work. |
|
|
|
Post by pippsheadache on Aug 6, 2022 16:20:50 GMT -5
Walking through our bathroom door threshold, one looked straight ahead toward the east wall, where two windows looked upon our back yard, which was essentially St. Augustine grass, a septic tank, a shed housing the pump to our water well (normally with garlic hanging from the roof), several bamboo trees, huge fig trees, oak trees, a vegetable garden, and a fenced lot for horses. Behind all of that was a field usually plowed, flooded, or filled with rice, or rice stubble after harvest. Between the two windows in the east wall was a gas heater that produced an open flame. On the west wall was the door, a sink and medicine cabinet and a small bench that held towels. On the south wall was all storage space: inset cabinets from floor to ceiling, inset drawers, an inset clothes hamper, and behind two doors was a closet full of shelves, and above the two closet doors were two more cabinets that reached the ceiling. On the north wall was the tub and shower and the two now famous back to back toilets. The first one, if seated, faced west; the second, if seated, faced east. Separating the two was a partition wall that contained the plumbing for them. Each had its own toilet paper roll. The bathroom was not unisex. Any female using the facilities had complete privacy. There was a different standard for the boys. We never had privacy. Any attempts on my part, as I mentioned previously, were met with derision and scorn. I avoided such arrangements, often using the great outdoors to micturate. No one lived within a quarter to half mile from us, except my grandmother. Plenty of trees, a horse barn, three sections of garden, and the sides and back of the house to utilize without being seen. The house was set on concrete pylons, roughly two to three feet above the ground, to guard against flooding from hurricanes or multiple days of torrential rain. When this did happen, ditches surrounding the home parcel would overflow and surround our house like a lake. Occasionally, an alligator would take temporary residence near the mail box until the water subsided. After we left Vermont and moved to Florida, my situation was similar to yours' Rizz. We rented an old tin-roofed, Florida cracker house that was off the ground on concrete pylons. Very common on the island I lived on. Our yard flooded every time it rained. In fact, the local paper use to come by our house periodically and take pictures after a heavy rain. Called it Lake Borden after my family's name. We didn't have any alligators, but lots of snakes. We had one bathroom for five kids (four boys, one girl), but also woods on three sides. Many a day found my brothers and I peeing behind a tree because the bathroom had a logjam. You mentioned St. Augustine grass. Who ever invented it should rot in hell. We had a half acre of that shit we had to mow with a an Lawn Boy push mower. Like pushing a wheelbarrow full of sand that has a flat tire. That is pure Southern literature by both of you right there. Like reading James Agee, with the jeweler's eye for detail of Thomas Wolfe. I'm a bit disappointed that there was a toilet partition Rizz. Just a hint of delicacy there. St. Augustine grass sounds like the Southern equivalent of Zoysia grass in the Mid-Atlantic. My father planted a bunch of that stuff and it conquered all other grasses on most of our property and began to invade others as the years went by. Two days of rain and it was unmowable. We were devout Briggs and Stratton customers, but I used to love the lyrical Lawn Boy commercials of the early 1960s. "Lawn Boy gives you a level-cut lawn, a level-cut level-cut level-cut lawn." |
|
