Mowing Etiquette

ericforster said:
In Illinois the law says no operating of yard macinery before 8 am monday - friday and 9 am on the weekends. This law also limits to 9 pm. I have seen a few neighbors cutting grass as early as 7 but noone seems to mind up here in the rockford area. If you are in dekalb, they may be a little more criticle of the law due to the college.
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Really? I've lived in Illinois for all of my 55 years and never knew there to be such a law. Though I know that in certain towns they get all worked up about it,
but I've never known anyone to be ticketed for mowing outside any certain hours, usually it's certain neighbors that whine and complain among themselves.
I have one myself that used to, if I had anything running after 6pm.......
I remember pulling about a dozen mowers and GTs out in the driveway to fire them up all at once, letting them run at full throttle for "exercise" just because of that certain neighbor. And still do bring everything I have at the house at a given time out and fire them up to drown out a certain couple who live to scream and argue with each other.... I don't have as many any more though, as I used to.
 
And another one I found hilarious as did the guilty parties once I relayed a certain message at work.

I work adjacent to an IDOT garage, and especially certain times of the year I find myself as the sole occupant of our building/ between our side and IDOTs side.(since I'm the only mechanic)
About a month ago the "building inspector" for the town I work in, came in asking if I was "in charge"
I answered "well I guess I am at the moment since I'm the only one here right now".
Among our local DOT crew's mowing responsibilities is the sides of the main drag thru the Town we are located in, since it is a "US route" which reverts to the state to maintain.
well I guess one of our guys had blown some clippings into the lane of Traffic while out there this one particular day. The guilty guy is a very local guy, in his later 60s, well known, local farmer, has served on both the county and township boards over the years. If anyone would tell this building inspector to go "screw himself" it would be this particular guy/ who was mowing that stretch of road on that day....
I guess this building guy went out to where our guy was mowing once he left me...
They laughed about that for a week after the complaint..... and I guess it was said somewhere along the way that "well the city could take over mowing that section if it came down to it, they oughta be glad we do it for them" of which I only heard that part after the fact.
It was also brought up by another of our crew that his jacket said "building inspector" and didn't say mowing police "
I had to go that way after work that day and there were a few blades of grass on the stone shoulder but nothing in the road .. the breeze from passing cars had cured the problem in the few hours since this guy came by....
I'm on a corner lot and when I mow my ditches I do get some clippings that land in the road.... Though I don't intentionally try to blow em all into the road, I actually do blow mostly inward once I blow the Lowest swipe at the bottom outward, but yeah I do wind up with "some" in the road. And in 25 years of living here nobody has complained. Though I probably mow more often than anyone else around me probably helps keep the quantity down since I don't let it get that long .. and I do ride a Harley besides ... When I see complaints about this elsewhere online it's usually the motorcycle crowd who does, followed by the uppity Yuppies
And because of the Yuppies when I mow both my Mom's house ( which I have mowed since the late 70s) and my MILs yard I have to be sure to take my leaf blower with and blow everything back out of the road into the yard ...it never used to be this way And no, I will not mulch or bag.
 
dodge trucker said:
Really? I've lived in Illinois for all of my 55 years and never knew there to be such a law. Though I know that in certain towns they get all worked up about it,
but I've never known anyone to be ticketed for mowing outside any certain hours, usually it's certain neighbors that whine and complain among themselves.
I have one myself that used to, if I had anything running after 6pm.......
I remember pulling about a dozen mowers and GTs out in the driveway to fire them up all at once, letting them run at full throttle for "exercise" just because of that certain neighbor. And still do bring everything I have at the house at a given time out and fire them up to drown out a certain couple who live to scream and argue with each other.... I don't have as many any more though, as I used to.
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This law is more of a noise ordinance, but it includes outdoor equipment. As a landsccaper, we cant run equipment on residential property until 8 am. We can use all sorts of non power equipment or maintain commercial properties as early as we want.
 
Lance Skene said:
even a small amount of clippings on the road can be very dangerous with a bike on street tires... the grass can stick to the warm tires and then you cant hardly touch the brakes without the wheels locking up just as they would on ice.
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When I lived down south, the county I lived in had a very enforceable law about mowers or blowers putting clippings on streets or roadways. If it was deemed to cause an accident, you lost your license!
 
I try to not mow when it is too early.

Wish I had more opportunities of choosing when to mow.

Well I've read not to mow grass when wet......ha ha .... Around where I live the leaves/lawn would be out of control, or the season would be changing from one season to the next.
Mowing only when dry is pretty much impossible....dew in spring or fall, at minimum.
 
Cvans said:
First truck to go by blows all the grass off road here. If the grass is thick I’ll not blow it on the road. I’m more worried about throwing a rock at someone’s car when they go by.
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A company I worked for got their first bat-wing Woods mower. The Woods company sent out an 'expert' to show us how to use it. He made the statement that it wouldn't throw anything out. Explained that the engineers would drop bearings into it, to test for that.
The first year, we used it on ground sloping down from the road and it picked up a big rock and caved in the door of a passing car.
 
Lily'sDad said:
A company I worked for got their first bat-wing Woods mower. The Woods company sent out an 'expert' to show us how to use it. He made the statement that it wouldn't throw anything out. Explained that the engineers would drop bearings into it, to test for that.
The first year, we used it on ground sloping down from the road and it picked up a big rock and caved in the door of a passing car.
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Sometimes experts are less of an expert, than somebody who is not an expert.......but just has common sense mechanical skills.......
 
I have two mulching self propelled push mowers. I make six 350’ trips back and forth next to our road is the only time I use them. I like them a lot. Grass falling from a mulcher is a lot different than blades of grass flying out the chute. It’s very small pieces that work their way back beneath the grass near the soil rather than large pieces laying on top. It looks much nicer, and fertilizes the grass. I especially like bagging it up sometimes for garden mulch a couple of times a year.
 
I use my mower lift to get the front up about 2' off the ground. Lay down back a ways on the grass and use the wand from the power washer to really clean the deck out. always run the mower of grass, not dirt or gravel afterwards to dry it out.
 
SimplyRad said:
I have a plug in off side of the deck on my ZT where I plug in the water hose then turn the deck and the water on and wash the deck out.
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I never heard those washing ports did well. Never cleaning it fully and leaving a big soppy mess underneath that never dries out and making it worse long term. Had one myself on a push mower at one time and wasn't impressed.
 
Mowed with the cub this morning. Steering was a bit jerky to start out with but after about 45 min. run time it smoothed out good. Going to change the filter and keep running it. Have a guy lined up that will rebuild it for me but lot of work to get it off the tractor. Will have to get my work bench back in to get the tractor up on and remove the center planks to get at the under side to get the 6 hoses off. Just love working with hydraulics over my head. Could use the overhead wagon hoist and chain hoist and stand it on it's tail to work on nit. That may be the better choice.
 
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