We have a lot of yard to care for, we need a lot of volunteers to help. We’ve found we need a MINIMUM of 3 to make this job tolerable; 4-5 is better. MakeICT has one riding mower, 2 edgers, and 1 trimmer available for use. There should also be available hearing protection, eye protection and maybe work gloves. I can setup a time to meet to go over the safe use of the yard equipment. Bring your own water, or get bottles in the break room fridge (free!)
I will get a schedule and sign up sheet up soon. Hope to get mowing before the end of April. I will get to the garage and check out available machines we have. Thank you Cathy for working on the mower. Anyone know if the trimmer and edgers are working?
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You’re welcome! As far as I know, the trimmers and edgers have not been started. I think I flooded the trimmer trying it the other day so just hung it back up in shame.
At some point we’ll need to do an oil/filter change on the mower. There is a quart of oil in the locker with the gas if it’s low on the dipstick. I pulled the air filter and cleaned it - looks like it will at least get us started this season. There is a small hole in the grass deflector - we might want to see if we can scab patch it, JB weld it or something - replacements are not cheap. It would be nice to have a set of blades on hand as they take a beating from the rocks near the creek side of the property. Also there are quite a few rocks just west of the garden. I picked up some the other day, but a good policing up before mowing should add time to the life of the blades. I ran the mower the other day from the sidewalk to the street on the east and south sides just to knock down the weeds - other than the dandilions, and the weeds by the south door, the lawn did not look to overgrown.
Have fun!
In one of my previous lives working for The City I was parks maintenance, coincidentally for region that included Cessna Park just across the way. Part of my duties was setting up for seasons and, when needed when our supervisor was called to active duty, set rotations & run ground crew. If wanted I could help the Lead on this look over equipment/grounds and try to work out a good S.O.P. to try and cut down the time as much as possible.
Off the top of my head looking at the stated inventory v.s. a standard crew loadout we are edger rich and trimmer poor. If we could snag one more good trimmer 3 - 4 people could knock out everything in probably 3-4 hrs. The time bottleneck will be the actual mowing with the rider just due to size of deck vs. the area available.
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I will come help
First, Thanks so much to everyone who volunteers for yard maintenance!
I do want to raise a couple of points concerning the garden committee and the space we inhabit.
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We definitely want the grass clipping for compost!!! We have been collecting our organic waste and ask that you please drop off clippings and such with the existent piles in the designated area at the southwest corner of the tilled garden just inside the fence. We should have signs up by next Saturday afternoon.
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We are trying to transform the entire courtyard area into a more inviting space for all makers, and to this end have been doing various decorative plantings. Recently some of these plantings have been cut down causing a bit of frustration and even heartache for Garden Committee members. These were not marked though what might be salvageable is marked now. If and when they grow to a point that they are again discernable from the general lawn, and when new plantings are installed they may or may not have borders (but should have small, and possibly not obvious signage, indicating what is planted there. We ask that when mowing and trimming that any volunteers err on the side of caution and assume that any unmarked growing things that present higher than the surrounding turf inside the courtyard area are intentional plantings, and not mow or trim them down.
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This is less garden related. The extension cord to the pavilion lights was left unplugged after it was moved to mow (thank you very much for moving it btw). I am told this is a security issue, and that all need to remember to plug it back in if unplugging it for any reason.
The garden committee is small and requires an abundance of work (and we know that all of you performing yard maintenance are in much the same boat). We really are trying to maintain the courtyard area, and will mow and trim as we can when needed. However it may need attention when others are mowing the grounds and we very much appreciate the help if you would like to mow the courtyard, but please look out for any possible intentional plantings if you do.
And, seriously, thanks for all your hard work!!!
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Sorry about the clippings - I mowed and raked from the sidewalks to the streets. Didn’t have the means to bale it, didn’t want to leave windrows and didn’t want to just put it in the trash - thought that was just a pile of dirt on the other side so went with the sidewalk convenience when dragging the barrels full of grass.
Can move it if you’d like.
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Cathy, no worries. We like those clippings!
If anything was cut around the garden it was probably me; sorry; I looked hard and thought if it didn’t looked planted it was going down. Please mark your plants (even marking flags will work.) and I will remember to plug the extension cord back in next time
got new blades, axle covers and oil filters for the mower; will get the blades installed as soon as I’m able. Also took a craftsman string trimmer, the mcclane edger and a blower in for tune up/maintenance because I couldn’t get them to start; I will get a replacement trimmer attachment for the craftsman, so we’ll have 2 string trimmers, and 2 edgers soon. The John Deere edger started right up.
Thank you to whoever mowed the lawn this past weekend. Did a great job! I will mow this coming weekend, either Friday after work or Saturday morning.
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Hey Guys,
The yard is looking a bit rough.
I don’t think I’m going to be able to get to either the weed eating or mowing this weekend. Would someone else be available to help?
What times you looking at?
If I have any energy left and don’t have any last minute repairs, it’d be pretty late Friday or Saturday, like after 7pm.
We also need someone to take a look at the deck on the mower… One side of the deck is hanging significantly lower than the other.
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I should be able to help out Friday night.
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Thank you @MAtherton and @pwhutchi for your help tonight with mowing and weed eating!
We made use of the electric weed eaters and also converted the troy built weed eater to a bp feed head.
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