It doesn’t happen all the time, but Mo does have run-ins with various things around the yard (as you’ve seen in some past Mo Monday blog posts). Mo usually gets caught up in something we moved or put in his way. Today, I’ll simply share a few more of the challenges he has faced while just trying to do his job.
A few weeks ago, I harvested our onions. As I was washing them, I saw him making his way to his robot house. He was clearly destined for failure with this heap of onions in his path. Wanting to save the onions from potential mowing, I grabbed a quick photo and helped Mo leap over the pile to get home. Another day we left this patio chair in the grass. Mo and chairs…they just don’t always get along.Then there was that one time, in the front yard when I removed the wooden edge along the grass. Mo fell out of his mowing area, and got stuck in this plant trying to get back to work.
While working in the front yard, we had used our edging tool to create a nice edge along our sidewalk. However, something like 30 years of sedimentation resulted in creating quite a drop off between the grass and the sidewalk. We have discovered that, when Mo hits it straight on, it can be very challenging.
To be fair, Mo generally has success with the edge–so long as he takes it at a slight angle. This video is from soon after we did the edging.
Don’t forget! The Raise The Blade planning team is looking for people (ages 18+ who live in the Lake Champlain basin) to share #RaiseTheBlade photos and stories via social media, and to enter for a chance to win an electric mulching mower. The drawing will take place on Labor Day 2020! Learn more at lawntolake.org.
This Mo Monday, we’d like to mention a very important topic! That is, the Raise the Blade team is running a contest this summer. People over 18 who live in the Lake Champlain basin can enter for a chance to win a mulching mower! The idea is to help one lucky winner implement the recommended Raise the Blade lawn care practices, while getting to see many people’s ongoing actions to Raise The Blade.
You might wonder how a mulching mower could help someone to implement the Raise the Blade best practices. Since a mulching mower cuts lawn clippings into very small pieces and leaves them in place to decompose, they are easily broken down by soil microorganisms and add nutrients right back to the soil. This adds organic matter to the soil, which helps it to hold more water. Soils that can hold more water help limit the amount of stormwater runoff that leaves a yard, and that’s the ultimate goal of the Raise the Blade campaign.
To enter the contest, simply enter your contact information here, and share a photo of you or someone else following Raise the Blade recommended practices, or showing your grass cut to 3″ in height. You can share your photo via email by sending it to seagrant@uvm.edu or via social media by posting it to Twitter and tagging @lakechamp or to Instagram, tagging @lakechamplainbasinprogram and using the hashtag #RaiseTheBlade. The drawing will be held on Labor Day 2020.
Now, about Mo and that Adirondack chair…my husband finished building this and another chair a few weeks ago, and we placed them in the yard in a nice shady spot for some summertime reading and relaxation. We knew Mo would bump into the chairs, but watched him carefully the first time he approached them. I even recorded it, not knowing what might result. Things went perfectly smoothly, which you can see in the video below.
Mo meets the Adirondack chair – the first time.
However, as you can see from the photo at the top, Mo’s second meeting with one of the chairs didn’t go as smoothly. That, or maybe he was trying his hand at being Atlas?
