Eric Piehl comments on mowing my 🌾︎ turf grass lawn

Prepare

Prepare to mow whenever your lawn:

• in the 🇺🇸 USA, starting on Mother's Day (the Second Sunday in May), according to Americans who worry about scarce early-blooming flowers to feed our early-season pollinators;  or
• does not contain flowers needed for early-season pollinators (see infographic ↗ above or to right);

and is:

• growing,
• ragged-looking, or
• nearing 50% longer than your mowing height in the table ↓ below (12–15 cm) (4½–6 in).

Maybe every 📅︎ 10 days, depending on the season and weather.

If allergies ever interfere with an awesome night's sleep.

I mow my 🌾︎ lawn with a Honda lawnmower, model=HRR2169VKA EJ, serial=MZCG-9229225, manual.    Light, fast, and reliable;  it mulches very well!  I love this mower!

• ☑ Verify oil level:  (page 6)
   ◦  clean dipstick with rag,
   ◦  pull out,
   ◦  oil should be in hatched area.  As needed, add oil SAE 10W-30 API service SJ.
• Knock all grass fragments out of the air filter.  (page 12)   When it comes time to replace, do so with Honda lawnmower air filter 17211-Z8B-901.
• Do all the other ☑ pre-mow checks.  (page 4)
  
  
• Keep your lawn neat by cutting it even.  Not short — that just makes your lawn grow uneven faster.  Make life easy on yourself by following recommendations of your local watershed council (personalize myWatershed), and me …
  
  

  If you are cutting or mulching (what is mulch?):	with grass length:		then set mower to blade height:	via setting each wheel's open slots:
  🌾︎ grass tall and wet	10–15 cm   4–6 in		10 cm   4 in	0 in front 5 behind
  🌾︎ grass in normal condition
  	9–13½ cm   3½–5¼ in		9 cm   3½ in	1 in front 4 behind
  🍃︎ leaves after nights are cool	8–12 cm   3–4½ in		8 cm   3 in	2 in front 3 behind

  
  
• ☑ Verify internal door is securely latched in position = MULCH.
• ☑ Verify gasoline level, adding if needed.
  
  
• Don PPE:
   ◦  👟︎ Closed-toe shoes with 🧦 socks (crew-length, not shorties).
   ◦  👓︎ Safety glasses.
   ◦  👂 Hearing protection (not necessary with this quiet Honda).
   ◦  Optional 🧤 gloves.
   ◦  Optional 👒︎ sunhat.
   ◦  If allergies from mowing may interfere with an awesome night's sleep tonight:
      (A) take your 💊︎ long-acting second-generation antihistamine you didn't bother with last night,
      (B) with a 🚰︎❄💧︎ tall glass of cold water, and
      (C) don a 😷 N99 or P100 HEPA respirator/​filter.
  In my town, Lowe's and Menards have a better selection of PPE and lighting vs. Home Depot.
  
  
• If you are going to blow off the roof, clean the skylights, or blow off the deck, do it now — mowing will do most of the cleanup.
• If you are going to edge or weed using mechanical methods, do it now — the perimeter mow will do most of the cleanup.
   ◦  Among my weeds is hairy bittercress  Cardamine hirsuta.
  
  
• Open gasoline valve, on left side of engine.
• Hold dead-man switch to handle.
• Pull to start.
• Mow …

Finish up

• Close gasoline valve, on left side of engine.
• Blow clean with leaf-blower:  top, sides and underneath (blow in through cuttings-discharge chute).
• Put away mower.  If necessary, stow handle out of way.
  
  
• If you have 💦︎🛢 rain barrels, verify that they are still draining, not full of algae, etc., in accordance with 💦︎🛢 rain barrel installation, use and management.
• If the weeds just got away from your mechanical efforts above, and you have a spray bottle of 2,4-D or whatever appropriate to the job, now is a good time to spray herbicide on just the weeds you see:
   ◦  Follow all label instructions — the 📄︎🛂︎ label is the law.
   ◦  Keep 🚼︎ kids, 🐕︎ pets and 🚶︎ self away until dry.
   ◦  In a couple (four, eight, sixteen) days, monitor your effects.
   ◦  Among my weeds is hairy bittercress  Cardamine hirsuta.
• Early in the growing season, you can look into controlling crabgrass  genus Digitaria.

References

^[1]  My notes indicate I heard Rick Darke say this at a conference 2015-03-07.  — EP 2016-10-01.

^[2]  My notes indicate I heard a 🗣 speaker say this at the same conference as above 2015-03-07.  — EP 2016-10-01.

😷 Respirators and face masks

👥︎ Protect others.  If:

• you live during the ☣⚕︎ COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic or flu season, or
• you are sick with anything,

get any of the respirator or face mask types described ↓ below.  When 🚶︎🏠︎ in public, particularly indoors, wear it to 👥︎ protect others, including your immuno­compromised / medically-vulnerable 👪︎ family, 👥︎ friends and colleagues, and 🌐︎ all other residents of our planet. [3] [4]   And if you don't care about actually protecting other people, wear your mask anyway, to allow our medically-vulnerable populations listed below to feel more comfortable.

👤︎ Protect yourself.  If:

• your allergies ever interfere with an awesome night's sleep, [5] after:
   ◦  mowing the lawn,
   ◦  cleaning out the shed,
   ◦  sweeping or blowing out the garage, or
   ◦  vacuuming the basement.
• you have ⚠︎🫁 asthma, [6] cystic fibrosis CF [7] or other chronic lung disease,
• you are immunosuppressed,
• you live in an area with 🔥︎ wildfire smoke, [8] outdoor pollution, or 💨 windborne dust, or
• you ever work with anything ☠︎ poisonous or toxic (even 🪵 wood!),

then get a reusable 😷 P100 HEPA or N99/​FFP3/​KF99 respirator/​filter mask that removes from the air 99.97% or 99% (respectively) of particulates,[?] including droplets, as part of an aerosol[?] down to 0.3 microns (µm) (¹/_50,000 in) (about the size of a large virus).

The ⚕︎ medical industry loves their single-use N95/​FFP2/​KF94/​KN95 (in 🇺🇸 USA, 60% of KN95 are counterfeit) respirators, that remove 95% of these particles.

Try hard to select masks actually do that, and are not counterfeit.   How to shop, how to spot fakes.   A good source.

For full effect, view the video ↗ above or to right by selecting the video image, then icons ⛶ fullscreen, ㏄ captions,  ▶︎ Play, and ⏯︎ ☒ Skip Ads.

When 🚶︎🏠︎ in public, wear your mask to 👤︎ protect yourself.

After purchasing your 😷 respirator or face mask, please continue:

• 👥︎👤︎ Men, ✂︎ trim your 🧔 facial hair in accordance with 🇺🇸 USA CDC document "Facial Hairstyles and Filtering Facepiece Respirators"   (unless you plan to exclusively wear a HEPA helmet ).
  This author is happy to see his Air Force-style mustache (trim and stylish, the chevron, apparently) passes CDC criteria.
  
  
• 👥︎👤︎  ▶︎   Learn how to adjust and verify the fit of your respirator or face mask. Donning[?] procedures for models approved by 🇺🇸 USA CDC NIOSH.
  
  
• 👤︎ If you are going out to mow the lawn, clean the shed, sweep or blow out the garage, or vacuum the basement.
   ◦  Before donning your 😷 respirator or face mask, drink a 🚰︎❄💧︎ tall glass of cold water.
   ◦  While wearing your 😷 respirator or face mask, take frequent breaks, with more 🚰︎🚰︎❄💧︎ tall glasses of cold water — your respirator makes it more difficult to dump heat.
  
  
• 👤︎ If your 👓︎🌫 glasses ever fog up while wearing your mask:
   ◦  don , then pull earloops down from earlobes,
   ◦  get an add-on headstrap, or get a mask or respirator with headstraps instead of earloops,
   ◦  get and adjust a face mask brace or bracket,
   ◦  learn how to better fit your mask or get a mask or respirator that seals better, or
   ◦  other ways to avoid foggy glasses while wearing a mask.
  
  
• 👤︎ If your respirator is mostly nonporous (e.g., silicone or hard plastic),  ▶︎  learn how to 🧼💦︎ wash and dry your 😷 respirator.
  If wearing your 😷 respirator or face mask while mowing, you are going to be 💦︎ sweating into it a lot.  If your mow takes you over 🕐︎ an hour, you want to clean it after each day's use.  Shortly before I found this video, I discovered that I can disassemble my 3M 7502 above into three parts by separating the stiff darker pieces at the 👃︎ nose bridge at the embossed "M" "7502".  Cleans way better (you can actually rinse away all the spit and 🧼 soap), and dries way faster (hours, not days).  Do a good job, and you don't get a 👃︎ stale smell the next time you don your respirator!
  
  
• 👤︎ If your mask is built of porous com­po­nents (e.g., woven, felt or knit fabrics), and you intend to reuse it, let them dry well in a clean place between use, and let sit for a few days to dry and allow the virus to fall apart.

👥︎👤︎ If you are a 🏫︎ teacher, or 🗣 speak in-person to groups primarily from one place, and who probably should wear a mask but that might interfere with your job function:

• Get or make a portable room air cleaner as ↑ above.
• Better than that, get a mask you can wear — check out the 🗣😷 choir mask ↑ above.
• If needed, get a 🎤︎ microphone.

Happy mowing, cleaning, vacuuming, sweeping and blowing!

(If you got to this respirator/​face mask section direct, check out sections allergy and PPE ↑ above!)

References

^[3]  "Considerations for Wearing Cloth Face Coverings."  🇺🇸 USA CDC.  Updated June 28, 2020.   Accessed 2020-07-13.

^[4]  😷 "COVID-19:  Why we should all Wear Masks —
there is new Scientific Rationale."  Sui Huang.  2020-03-26.   Accessed 2020-04-25.