'Green' Lawncare

Finished mowing my yard tonight, and while I mowing, kept thinking about how glad I am that I bought the Ego Power lawn mower (and the weedeater they make).  Growing up on a farm, I've used more than my fair share of gas powered mowers and trimmers.  When Laura and I moved into a subdivision, I knew I was going to have to buy a lawnmower.

Ego Power, High-Beams On

At first I was tempted to get a reel mower, but I finally decided that I might need something with a bit more power.  After doing some research, I stumbled on the Ego brand.  The promise?  A 56-volt lithium ion battery powered mower, with the capabilities of a gas mower.  Along with a push mower (non self-propelled), they also make a weedeater, chain saw, and leaf blower.  The batteries are interchangeable, and can be charged in less than half an hour.  Along with the mower, I also picked up the weedeater.


The mower has enough power to chop down dandelions and thick weeds, although it can bog down on thick grass.  The discharge chute clogs somewhat easily, and it has a bag system (never tried it).  Assuming you take care of your yard, it does an admiral job.  And it's extremely quiet.  The weedeater is a whole different animal -- in a very, very good way.  I have yet to see a lack of power, and it's nowhere near as loud as a gas weedeater.

Anyways, before this turns into a review -- I started this to talk about choosing battery power over gas.  A typical gas push mower run for an hour produces as much pollution as eight new cars driving 55 mph for that same amount of time.  Kind of boggles the mind, eh?  Now consider that I don't need to go purchase gas or oil for my mower, and store it in the garage.  Or change spark plugs.  I simply pop the battery on the charger.  When it dies (after about 45 minutes), I just swap to my weedeater battery and finish mowing the lawn.

And on the storage -- a lawnmower usually takes up premium space in the garage, unless you have a shed.  Well, since this doesn't have a fuel tank, it can fold up vertically, so that when it's stored (takes about 15 seconds to fully collapse it), it only sticks out from the wall about a foot, in about an 18" wide by about a 2 foot tall package.  Try doing that with your gas mower.

It'll be amazing to see what happens as the technology improves, and more companies start making electric lawn equipment with these capabilities.  In case you're interested in the brand, the only place I've found that carries them is Home Depot.  I highly recommend them, but your mileage may vary.

A Return to Blogspot

A few years back, I bought the daynwj.com domain, and three years of web hosting, in the interest of creating my own web site.  Other than initially creating that site, and writing a few posts (which I've transferred here), I was so inactive that when the notification came to renew those domain and hosting subscriptions, I couldn't justify spending the money required, when I barely used it.

I've always enjoyed writing, however, and having a blog allows me to do just that, though for the much more agreeable price of free.  I originally created this blog after graduating from Transy, when I'd moved up to Wisconsin for a few months.  Rather than starting over from scratch, this seemed the perfect choice.  While I can't really store a lot of photos here, I'm able to have a gadget that ties in to my Flickr photo stream, so everything is easily available from one location.  And since Blogger is a Google product, everything is even more secure with their top-notch security.

The title of this blog has changed slightly, but I still feel that the Ray Bradbury quote is a perfect description of my goals with this blog -- this is my own personal forum to explore and debate the intricacies of my daily life in more depth than Facebook could ever allow.  If you're reading this, I can't promise a regular update schedule, but hopefully this will give a bit of an insight into who I am and why I think the way I do -- or at least how I think on certain issues.  If you don't agree with something I've said, please feel free to comment -- but remember that everything stated here is my own opinion.