The History of Lawnwork

Originally mankind did not have lawns. The door out of the house lead straight into the forest, jungle, ocean, ect. This was a lovely and uncomplicated system which had but a single drawback. The one drawback was that rarely one might leave the house only to be eaten by a bear or killed by natives. This could be inconvenient and could have a negative impact on one's income. Therefore man took to clearing a patch of ground around his house so he could sneak a look out the door and tell whether or not it was safe to make a dash for work. Since animals and natives are sneaky, it was necessary to not only fell the trees and cut back the brush, but also to cut down the tall grass. Once this was done, it had to be maintained. Fire would seem to be the obvious choice, except for 2 things. Rebuilding houses is a lot of work and wives tend to not like the look of charred ground. You see after man went through all of the trouble of eradicating all the local vegetation around the house, the wives went out and found weeds they thought attractive and planted them in random locations.

This created a problem. Maintaining the cleared area was time consuming and was no where near as fun as hunting large animals, fishing, or racing souped up horses. Especially if you had to do it with your bear-skinning knife. So man invented the lawn mower. The first lawn mower wasn't sophisticated. It was basically a knife attached to a stick. This was still a lot of work so man invented the teen-aged son. As hindsight, it would probably have been better to just redesign the lawn mower, but once something is invented it is harder than hell to uninvent it, see atomic bomb, Paris Hilton, the Jersey Shore, ect.

The first lawn mower wasn't called a lawnmower of course. Neither the term yard nor the term lawn had been invented yet. The first lawn mower was called the sling blade because it sounded cool. One could often get up to 10 minutes of labor without complaining out of a teen-aged son before he realized that just because the tool had a cool sounding name didn't make it any less work. Fortunately teen-aged sons aren't bright, so often you could get that 10 minutes or so by repeating the name up to 60 or 70 times. Hopefully by then the grass is mowed. Don't worry, by next week he will have forgotten anything he might have learned.

As time progressed, the wheel was invented. Man decided to attach smaller blades to the insides of two small metal wheels. Then these were attached to two larger rubber wheels which was then attached to a handle which, in turn, was attached to a teen-aged son. Duck tape on son's mouth was optional. This was the first lawnmower. It was later discovered that it could also be propelled by teen-aged daughters, and older no-longer-teen-aged-sons that refused to leave home. However, unfortunately man grew tired of making new teen-aged sons when the old ones left and he grew tired of souping up horses, so he invented the internal combustion engine. Originally thought to only be good to propel metal buggies into trees, it was soon to be discovered that if you put the internal combustion on top of a metal frame and a blade underneath it, add 4 wheels, then attach the teen-aged son and handle combination to it, you have a excellent way to wake up your neighbors. It was later discovered that if all the teen-aged sons leave the house to avoid lawn work, you can use a bigger engine and frame and add a steering device and seat and the mower will propel itself into a tree.

It may seem that man had conquered nature at this point, but remember those strategically planted attractive weeds? Well mowing over those weeds often resulted in serious physical
injury when the wife noticed. There were also areas close to trees and the house and other large obstacles where the mower could not cut the grass. This was bad because it is amazing how many bears, tigers and natives can hide in the weeds around a small sapling. As such, trim work was invented. Sometimes the older type mowers would work, but eventually many devices such as clippers, pruners and trimmers were invented. The first real breakthrough came when some man became confused about whether he was working in the yard or fishing and discovered that while fishing line is extremely delicate and prone to snapping and breaking if near fish, it becomes strong and extremely sharp if there are not fish around. Unfortunately it tangles like a son-of-a bitch regardless of where it is. Thus was born the weed whacker. Weed whackers come in many forms. Some are wheeled models, however most are supposed to be portable. They are electric models, most of which seem to be completely incapable of cutting weeds, but excellent at slicing through the toughest extension cords. The gas models weigh more, are almost as noisy as lawn mowers and share a few common characteristics. If using the original heads they are excellent for cutting grass and weeds, but they are best at suddenly tangling themselves into a hopeless knot around the nearest tree, post, or chain link fence. If none of these are available, the weed whacker will tie the line to its own shaft. Another favorite trick is to let you spend 30 minutes patiently winding 600 or so yards of fishing line around the spool and installing the spool in the head, then at the first opportunity it will hurl the entire 600 yards of line out at extremely high velocity into the yard of a neighbor 6 or 7 houses away. If it for some reason doesn't want to do this, it will start to rapidly chop the line into tiny segments it will fire out in rapid secession. You will send a hour of so later that night picking them out of your legs. Yet another favored trick of the evil weed whacker is to unscrew the head and lob it unexpectedly into the most inaccessible, snake and spider infested part of the yard. Unless of course, it spies a hornet, yellow jacket or bumblebee nest, in which case it will aim for that resulting in you throwing the useless weed whacker at the swarm as you dash madly for the house.

One method of attempting to foil these playful pranks is to install a specialty head on the weed whacker rather than the spool. There seems to be 4 basic types.

1. The metal blade. It looks like a saw blade for a circle saw.
Advantage: doesn't break or unspool.
Disadvantage: resounding vibration when striking solid objects, doesn't cut plants very well, cuts wardrobe, vinyl siding and flesh just fine, though. Propels debris such as gravel with high velocity in random directions but usually at the person holding the whacker.

2. The metal chain. It is a little plastic wheel with from 2 to 4 little chains hanging off it, makes you think of a ancient torture device.
Advantage: ought to cut well, doesn't unspool.
Disadvantage: see wardrobe, vinyl siding and flesh damage above, as well as debris. Also, the chains can become tangled and HIGH SPEED METAL PROJECTILES embedded in legs if the chains come apart or loose.

3. Plastic Blades: A plastic wheel with from 2 to 4 somewhat flexible, thick serrated plastic knives attached. The attachments pivot freely.
Advantage: doesn't spool.
Disadvantage: blades wear out and break, although they last fairly well. It can be a bit hard on underpinning, but probably not worse than line. These work fairly well, they can fling light gravel and dirt, but not bigger gravel. A decent compromise. They sting but I haven't lost blood or clothing to them. You can burn a bit of flesh if you have to change a blade mid-job, but that is true of all the heads. Blades are a bit more expensive than line.

4. Line: These heads use line pre-cut to appropriate lengths. The original models were excellent and you just threaded line in through a series of holes, it was a bit hot if you were replacing line mid job, but the line stayed in place and lasted awhile. Fortunately they have wised up and now use a more complicated locking system that uses spring-tensioned metal pieces to hold the string in place. This is supposed to let you use any size line.
Advantage: No spooling, cheaper than blades, all advantages of using line.
Disadvantage: Old system not really any. New system: The metal clamps seem very picky, you are supposed to be able to use any size line, but the smaller line isn't held as well. I haven't tried really large line, but I suspect the tension won't be strong enough to hold it either. If you thread the line through backward, and leave the short side of the line on the wrong side of the clamp, the line shoots out the instant you start the whacker. Sometimes the line shoots out no matter what you do. If the lines are cut too long, they either tangle around the shaft or fly off to nowhere. Sometimes, if the lines stay in, by the time they need changing they have melted onto the clamp and you burn your fingers getting them out. The heads travel really well when removed and hurled by an angry weed whacker operator.