Bermuda Lawn Dominators
The Bermuda Lawn Dominators Podcast is your go-to resource for DIY lawn care enthusiasts looking to transform their lawns. Join hosts Skip Wheeler and Jason Crain as they provide practical tips, personal insights, and engaging discussions to help you dominate your lawn game. With a supportive community and a touch of fun with the "Lawn Beer of the Week" segment, this podcast is your ticket to achieving the lawn of your dreams and have fun on the journey. Let's get greener together!
Bermuda Lawn Dominators
A Lawnside Chat: Our Wives Join the Conversation
Remember the sense of accomplishment when you perfectly mowed your lawn for the first time? Well, join Jason Crain and Skip Wheeler, along with our wives Jennifer and Karla as we take you down memory lane of our childhood mowing experiences and beyond. Our lawns, Bermuda grasses to be precise, are more than just patches of green; they're a testament to our dedication and love for lawn care. We share funny stories of us drawing pictures in the lawn and the lessons we've learned, like the importance of preventing grass clippings from ending up in the street.
When the water bill arrives, we all grimace a little, but with online water irrigation systems like Racio or Rainbird, there's a lot less to worry about. Karla and Jennifer also weigh in on the conversation, sharing their experiences with the lawn.
What if we told you that a robot could take over your mowing chores? Sounds fantastic, doesn't it? Well, we're here to talk about just that. Mowing the lawn is not everyone's cup of tea, and robot lawn mowers are looking more and more like the future of lawn maintenance. But will the robot mowers make the cut? Join us as we dive headfirst into discussing the challenges of traditional mowing methods, exploring the possibility of robot lawnmowers, and pondering the practicality of getting a robot mower through a gate. Let's navigate this green journey together!
Bermuda lawn dominators.
Speaker 1:Let's grow greener together.
Speaker 4:Welcome everybody. We have our special guests tonight. With us are wives Carla and Jennifer Crane.
Speaker 2:Carla Wheeler and Jennifer Crane.
Speaker 4:Okay, I'll start over.
Speaker 2:Bermuda lawn dominators get the grass. You need all 14 in slow water fertilizing weed. You'll go to stop just to help your lawn. You'll be proud to walk outside to see the change that's undergone. Bermuda lawn dominators, let's grow greener together.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the Bermuda lawn dominators podcast, the one stop destination for all things lawn care, where we unlock the secrets to achieving a pristine and dominating lawn. I'm Jason Crane and I'm here with Skip Wheeler and special guests Carla Wheeler and Jennifer Crane. We're not experts, just passionate about lawns. Well, some of us.
Speaker 4:Welcome everybody. We got special guests with us. We got our wives joining us this evening. It's Carla Wheeler and Jennifer Crane. Happy to have you both on here.
Speaker 1:We're happy to be here, thank you.
Speaker 4:So we wanted to spend some time just recapping the summer of this past mowing season. We thought who better than our wives to give us some insight? But before we get too much into that, let's first do the lawn beer of the week.
Speaker 5:Welcome to the lawn beer of the week, where we motivate your lawn care with a side of happy happiness. Join us as we sip on refreshing brews that pair perfectly with tending to your lawn. Get ready to enjoy some grassy goodness and raise a glass to a lawn well done.
Speaker 4:All right, so what do we got this week?
Speaker 3:So this week we have a beer that was recommended to me by one of our members of our Facebook group.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And also a member of the Wheeler family.
Speaker 4:Yeah, my son Trevor, yeah, yeah, he recommended this one. It's the Fireman's Four.
Speaker 3:Yes, Fireman's Four from Real L Brewing Company in Blanco, Texas. Oh, okay, so it's just right up the road from us, not too far away.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so this is a Blondel. It's perfect for a hot day, paired with some spicy food, you know all your lawn.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Eat some fajitas, drink some Fireman's Four.
Speaker 4:Well, does everybody have their own beer? Everybody's gonna try it. Yes, the wives will try it. You got to talk into the mics.
Speaker 6:Yes, we will.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's good, I like that one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's really delicious.
Speaker 1:It's smooth.
Speaker 3:Yeah, really light, it is light.
Speaker 4:It's a Blond, it's a, so is this like a wheat beer? It tastes like a wheat beer too.
Speaker 6:I don't know, I don't see anything. Well it's good, though I like it.
Speaker 1:It's just a Blond. I don't think it has wheat. I don't think it's a wheat beer.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I don't think so either. Well, it's really good. It's good. You know it's starting to get into that fall time of year. This is a good beer for that. It kind of tastes a little fall like to me. Yeah, not so much summery, no citrus. Like some of the other ones, we've tried A little more pumpkin spice huh. Yeah, a little more pumpkin spice, that's perfect. I guess the pumpkin spice beer hasn't quite come out yet.
Speaker 3:I'm sure there's one out there.
Speaker 4:There's probably one out there, I'm sure there's a Starbucks.
Speaker 6:I think they do have a pumpkin beer at HEB.
Speaker 4:Oh, I think I will still steer clear of that personally. Well, we're going to talk about lawn stuff and how it affects the whole family and just everything that's gone on over the last several years of doing the lawn, and now our wives have learned to live with our obsessions. So I don't know, I don't guess it's impacted you guys too much, has it?
Speaker 6:How many lawn mowers do we have?
Speaker 4:Three.
Speaker 6:That's it, are you sure?
Speaker 4:I gave one to your dad. So yeah, I'm positive.
Speaker 1:So, other than garage space and shed space, I guess not a whole lot, and time away in the backyard, well true.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And doing the podcast.
Speaker 6:Well, they're sat too.
Speaker 3:Jennifer helps me mow a lot of times. A lot of times she does the mowing and I'll do the edging and the weed eating and clean up and all that, and so she's not on board with the multiple mowing times a week.
Speaker 2:I've already just mowed no in a week.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she's a one week, one day, a week mower.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the way it was growing up with my family. We mowed once a week. Oh, yeah, it wasn't when the grass got tall yeah but we didn't know any better about that.
Speaker 4:Cut it as short as you can. We all did that. Or if you skipped a week, you mowed extra short, so you don't have to mow it every week. Yeah, no that was normal.
Speaker 1:And it was always mow as fast as you can so you can get it done. It wasn't like to make it look pretty, it was, you know, get it done and get out.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no drawing diamonds in the lawn or fertilizing or pre-emergent.
Speaker 1:The best we got was diagonals.
Speaker 4:We did diagonal rows as a kid, but that was about it. I used to draw pictures.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 6:I just drive around in circles.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my dad was pretty strict about how the lawn was supposed to be mowed and he didn't do a grass catcher. He right up the clippings and put them in a bag. So he wanted me to go concentric circles around, blow in the grass in the center. Yes, well, that makes sense, so that all the grass was in the middle and then you raked it up and put it in the back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was a rule for us too.
Speaker 4:You didn't want the clippings to be out in the street or in the yard. So well, at least he was smart about it. I mean, did he make you do the raking?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 4:Oh, I mean, if he wanted to punish you, he could have said go the other way. Well, I asked him one time.
Speaker 3:I was like you know, if we blew it the other way, I wouldn't be running over this grass at RE mode. You know the RE mode and the clippings are over there. You know he's like yeah, but how are you going to rake that?
Speaker 4:I was like, oh yeah, he's working smarter, not harder, yeah.
Speaker 1:I do like the way the yard looks, though I mean all the hours that you put in. It looks really nice after you're done.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I agree, our yard looks really good. I'm not allowed to touch it. I don't think. No, you've helped.
Speaker 4:You've helped quite a bit over the years. You're not afraid to get out there and help me and I appreciate that. But it is something that I enjoy doing. You know, it kind of started for me when the kids were little. This may sound horrible, but when you want some time where nobody can talk to you.
Speaker 1:We know where this is going, yeah.
Speaker 4:Well, we want some time. Nobody, yeah, I got a moe. Nobody can talk to you, nobody can bother you, so it's an hour.
Speaker 1:Kids are screaming. I got to go moe.
Speaker 4:Yes, it's a good dad thing to do, and it's not like anybody else is going to go out there and do it for me. So I I enjoyed doing it and I've always enjoyed doing it, even as a kid I enjoyed it, yeah.
Speaker 1:I liked mowing as a kid. That was always fun. I would have rather moe than clean the house any day.
Speaker 6:Well, I don't mind using the riding mower, but everything else is a no go for me.
Speaker 4:Well, the riding mower is a little bit more fun and I always enjoyed that as a kid If we had one. We didn't live in any places that we had one, but I always typically had the old push mower and they were not self-propelled, no, no, yeah, I remember the first self-propelled we got, and I was probably a teenager and my dad.
Speaker 3:The only reason he got it was he, you know, he had heart disease and so he's trying to, you know, take it easier on himself and so he finally sprung for a self-propelled, and I thought that was the greatest thing.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:It was ever invented. You know only rich people had one when I was a kid. Yeah, self-propelled.
Speaker 4:We always. I always enjoyed it, though it was my job. In fact, I would borrow a lot more, and part of the rule was I mowed the lawn. They would let me borrow the lawn mower to go mow other people's lawns. So back then I'd charge five to seven dollars to mow a whole lawn. Wow yeah.
Speaker 1:When I was a young adult I guess I was probably about 12 or 13. I was probably still a kid. Anyway, I was at my grandmother's house and she would have me mow the yard and my cousins would want to help. Well, I did most of it, and so my grandma would pay me. She paid me $20.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, that was yeah, that was a lot. Back then she said don't tell the cousins and the sisters that you got paid, because I'm not paying everybody. Well, of course me and my big mouth I had to tell my cousin David that I got paid $20 and that was the last time I got paid to mow. I teach you to keep your mouth shut.
Speaker 4:So my great-grandmothers lived behind each other in Oklahoma when I was a kid and my job was 12. I had to go mow both of their lawns and they came from very different worlds. One had a lot more money than the other, but their houses were back to back on the same, on opposite streets and the alley ran between their house. So I go mow my poor grandma's lawn and she had an electric mower back then. This is in the late 70s early 80s, and it plugged into the wall, though it wasn't battery powered, I would mow it and she'd give me a $5 bill.
Speaker 4:My other grandmother, who had the nice brick house and much, much more disposable income, she would give me a quarter. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 4:And I was naive. I just I would tell her don't worry about it. Grandma Nelson already gave me $5 and my parents were like shut up I didn't understand. I was just trying to tell her I don't need that quarter. I already got $5.
Speaker 3:So you were talking about the electric lawn mower. That made me think of something that happened whenever I was a kid. Our neighbor got an electric mower and he was bragging to my dad about it. It's the same kind, you have to run the extension cord and all that he was saying. I don't have to worry about changing the oil and putting gas in it, it starts every time, no problem. And he's out there mowing and he got around to the side of the house and his cord wasn't long enough, and so my dad just started laughing and went and started his gas mower and mowed it for him. Oh, that's funny.
Speaker 4:He's right, you don't have to worry about that stuff, but you need extension cords.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you definitely did back then.
Speaker 4:She had a very small house and a garden in half the backyard, so it wasn't too bad there. I hated it. I hated it as a kid having to deal with the extension cord.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah, flip it yes.
Speaker 4:Oh, it's getting in your way constantly.
Speaker 3:Was it the flip the handle kind? Is that the kind that you know we had?
Speaker 1:to. We turned it and then we took the actual extension cord and flipped it over the lawn mower.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember doing that the other house, I used a gas mower, so it was easy. So what else would you guys would you guys say about the lawn? I mean, how has it impacted you? I mean, you do have the nice lawn in the neighborhood both of y'all and Carter. You've mentioned that many times, so it's nice to have a good-looking lawn. You can you sometimes compare it to the neighbors as we're driving down the street?
Speaker 3:Yes, I do. I'm very proud of you. You like to be a dominator.
Speaker 6:Yes, I do, I like to be Ms Dominator.
Speaker 1:Do you like the price tag that goes with it?
Speaker 6:No, not at all. Actually, it's not been too bad. You know, if you buy the right stuff, you don't have to buy a lot of it.
Speaker 1:I feel like the amount of money that I spend on furniture and decorations and house stuff, I feel like it's I'm probably ahead still, so you can spend a little bit more, not a lot, unless you factor in those water bills that we've been getting the last couple of months. We're not going to bring that up on this podcast.
Speaker 4:Everybody's had rough water bills recently. I was talking to Chris Spangler today and his was extremely high as well. So yeah, it's just that time of year, you know. Now that we're coming out of July and August it won't be so bad. So into September here it starts cooling off a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm looking forward to that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, a nice low water bill and then I turn mine off in the winter. That way I don't have to worry about it at all. Take a break, yeah.
Speaker 3:I think that's probably what we'll do this year is just turn it off. So there's been years in our old house where I left it on through the winter and let the Racio decide whether it needs water or not, and then other years that were, we just turned it off for the In the winter. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's one thing I am interested in in putting money into is some kind of online water irrigation system, because what we have today doesn't we don't have that web-based functionality.
Speaker 4:Oh, like another Racio, yeah the.
Speaker 1:Racio was so easy I could see and turn it on, or turn it off, or check and see all of the weather, what it was going to stop, and with this I just wait for Jason to go take a look at it.
Speaker 4:It is a lot easier and you don't have to worry about adjusting it for the seasons. I really like that too.
Speaker 6:I like the fact that you can operate it from your phone. So if your husband doesn't answer his phone and you know he's outside, you can just turn on some of the sprinklers until he gets the message and checks his phone.
Speaker 1:I did that one time with my nieces and nephews at our house. So we had the Racio at the old house and all of my sisters and their kids were over and they were playing outside and it was hot. It was such a hot day and I thought it would be funny to turn the sprinklers on with the kids out there and they loved it, they loved it. But my sisters were not happy. Did they get muddy?
Speaker 4:Well, you know they were about to leave and they were wet, yeah, but Karla did do that one time. She couldn't get a hold of me. She was, I was mowing, but she was out in town somewhere calling my phone.
Speaker 6:Your tire had a nail in it and I was just taking them up to get it. The oil changed and they said you needed a new tire and they weren't cheap. So I wanted to get the okay and I was opening the garage door and closing it, turning on lights and that didn't help because I was in the backyard.
Speaker 3:Using all the automation.
Speaker 6:Yeah, everything I could.
Speaker 4:But so there's a benefit to it right there. So having the, there's another benefit to havinga Rochio or a system like that. Now I think Rainbird makes a cartridge for it that you can buy. I've never looked into it. Have you looked into it at all?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's about $100, a little over $100. And so I don't know I'm going back and forth on do I buy that or do I spend a?
Speaker 4:little more. Is there a subscription?
Speaker 3:I don't even know if there's a subscription or not?
Speaker 4:That would probably answer my question for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because there's no subscription with Rochio.
Speaker 4:No, you buy it and you're good. Yeah, I think they have come out with some. I'm just guessing. I think they have come out with some subscription options with Rochio, but I haven't done any of it.
Speaker 1:Is there any difference with the Rochio, with the drip irrigation, versus the other, or does it work the same? It should work the same.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it would work. The same.
Speaker 4:I can't imagine any difference. I don't know, though I hadn't thought about it. Well, no, you put in there what kind of type of sprinklers you have, and you? Just put drip on all of it, Jennifer. What have you thought about the new drip irrigation that you have versus what you had before?
Speaker 1:I don't like it. No, no, I don't. We've had some issues with digging in the yard and cutting into the drip irrigation which is right underneath our grass. So that's the pain. And I've also been thinking about when we want to put a pool in a year or two, and that's going to be just I don't know a big pain to try to get that all dug out and cleared out and then all the fittings back together. I don't like it as much as I like the old system.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Well, you know, no matter what system you have, when they put a pool in, they're just going to dig through it anyway.
Speaker 5:Yeah that's true, and that's what they did for us.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they completely just dug through ours and then we had to pay a sprinkler guy to come out and figure out what was left and how to fix it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the thing I worry about with the drip is that it's everywhere. You know, and so you know whenever you have the regular sprinkler system, you just have lines of pipe.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's not, you know. Run back and forth everywhere across your whole yard.
Speaker 4:Yeah, 12 inches apart, yeah, so is that how far apart it is?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's even closer. Yeah, it's really close.
Speaker 4:I mean, I guess it's better, though for the there's no evaporation at all, so you get better coverage yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I talked to a guy who just had a custom house built the other day and he that's why he wanted, that's why he was. He purposely bought a drip irrigation system for his lawn.
Speaker 4:What was his reasons?
Speaker 3:The evaporation and he just felt like it was better for conserving water.
Speaker 4:It probably is. I'm sure it is.
Speaker 6:So I have a question about the drip irrigation and it may be a stupid question, I don't know, but is there an issue with like dirt getting in there and clogging or root systems like getting in there, because I know, like with the flower bed, we have to, you know, check on that?
Speaker 4:I've never once checked on the one in the flower bed. Oh never had to do anything with it.
Speaker 6:Well, somebody that came in did the flower bed one time was was talking about it, and so yeah he did say I should have, that we should have done something with it.
Speaker 4:I don't remember what, but in 10 years and being here, that's the only time we've had any issue. It wasn't a huge deal, though, but now, with that drip system, you got positive pressure. So, anything that grows into those drip holes would get pushed back out. I mean, you could get it could get clogged here and there, but I don't think it'd be an issue. I don't know. I mean, maybe somebody out there listening would have a different opinion.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know, I felt like you did. I mean, I thought with the, with the positive pressure is not nothing would clog up the whole holes, especially if you're running it regularly. You know you're going to be washing it all out.
Speaker 4:And if it was a drain system like a French drain or something, then you might be where the water is going into the system and I think you're fine. I'll be interested to see how this drip irrigation goes over the next few years that you're in there and what you think of it over time, because you may end up liking it yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's, I don't mind it that much. I think it's okay. There are things about it that I don't that I just wonder about. You know, like whenever you have different types of fertilizer or other things that you're putting on your lawn and it says to water them in.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Is a drip system going to suffice, or do I need to? Put water on top of the lawn to water that in so things like that.
Speaker 4:That that it's also hard to tell how much water you're putting down right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's. Another thing is that I really don't know how much water I'm putting down for sure. I mean, I guess I could go out and look at the meter and try to figure it out from that, but I haven't done that so far.
Speaker 4:I don't know how you would figure out the square footage of each zone. Yeah, I mean, that's the hard part.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Without having seen the way they connected at all, right, yeah, well, it'll be interesting to see how it goes over the next next few years and what you think, and you may find that it's a better system overall.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I mean the. What I don't like about ours is having to replace the heads every so often. Oh, I know.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and readjust them.
Speaker 4:The backyard is really out of adjustment. I need to get out there and adjust them.
Speaker 1:Too many beers.
Speaker 4:Well, is there anything else with the lawn that you ladies would add to what we've talked about so far?
Speaker 6:I do like the robot lawnmower that we have now.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that has been a nice addition, for sure.
Speaker 6:Well, I just like the fact that it looks good. Well, the yard looks good, but yet you're not spending all your time out in the yard, so I kind of have our weekends back.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's true. I haven't been spending years of time, but once a month I'm still going out there and edging and weeding.
Speaker 6:Yeah, but for the most part we can go to the farmers market or get out and hang out with friends and it's nice.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it has been nice. It is definitely freed up some time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Jennifer's kind of pushing for us to get one now, then we have a much bigger backyard than we used to have. So, the mowing takes quite a bit longer, and especially whenever she's doing it and she comes in, she's like I think, for Christmas you should get a robot lawn mower.
Speaker 1:Yeah it is a lot and the real mower pushing the real mower versus just a regular push lawn mower, it's a little bit more of a beast to push.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's a little bit more work.
Speaker 3:It's real, I mean it's self-propelled.
Speaker 1:But it is more difficult to turn and that sort of thing and get into the corners and. And I think the last two times that I've mowed there's been something that has fallen off of the real mower, Like the front roller comes off of the pin, or it's just a little touchier than a regular mower.
Speaker 4:There's more maintenance involved, for sure. Yeah yeah, you know. And then also, with the way we all grew up, you just start the mower and go and replacing the lawn mower blade. To be honest, even changing the oil wasn't even a thought back then. Not least in my family it wasn't. I don't know that we ever changed oil and you can get more lawn mowers yeah.
Speaker 3:My dad came from a mechanic background. You know he grew up working on cars and tractors and worked on airplanes in the Air Force and we never changed the oil. He would check it every time he mowed and if it needed some he would put some in. Yeah, that's how I got fresh oil Was. Every time it was low, we added some to it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the real mower definitely has more maintenance because you gotta keep those blades sharp and in alignment and things can throw it off too. Things hit mulch. If I hit a piece of mulch or something, I'd throw it off, and definitely a rocker.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, whenever I first mowed, Jason was very particular about making sure all of the mulch was out of the way.
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah, I mean, it's like a pair of scissors, right. So try to run a pair of scissors over a piece of mulch. It's just not gonna work.
Speaker 1:Which is why we need the robot mower, so that it will do all of the work and you just spend the time on the maintenance.
Speaker 4:I don't think Jennifer's the hold up on the robot mower.
Speaker 3:Well, I just got a powered real mower.
Speaker 4:I know I'm excited about it. I don't blame you. I'm excited for you too, and I still have mine.
Speaker 1:Well, you can still use it for the front yard, and then we use the robot mower for the back yard.
Speaker 3:I think that's a good compromise actually.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely and really. The robot mower could just be a supplement, right, so you have your show piece wherever you want that to be and then just let the robot do its thing. That's really the way I was gonna start with the robot mower. I assume the robot mower was going to be a supplement. And then here I am, two months later and I haven't started my real mower.
Speaker 1:Well, it looks good. I can't really tell that much of a difference.
Speaker 4:Nobody can. My neighbors even commented on it last night that it looks like it always does, just mowed more often. I do get texts every once in a while from neighbors saying I saw your lawn mower out there. Was it working? Was it doing what it's supposed to? So never a question, it is nice. I mow in every other day, either the front or the back. So it's you know this part of the Bermuda line. Mantra right is mow low and mow often. So mowing often. I can't mow as low with this as I could with my real mower. I can only go down to 1.2 inches. I was mowing at 0.75. So if you're mowing at half an inch, it may be too much of a compromise, but that half an inch that I'm compromising from 0.75 to 1.2, without having to get out there and do it myself at all, it's a fair compromise. Yeah, so I do enjoy it. I enjoy, but I'm a tech nerd too. So, and just to be clear, if anybody's thinking about it, I'm a tech nerd, anybody's listening, if anybody's listening.
Speaker 1:I know I heard that too.
Speaker 4:If anybody's out there at all. We could do question that at times. But just to be clear, I'm a tech nerd and my tolerance level for the intricacies of new technology is pretty high. However, I have to say this the M emotion Luba 5000 has been hardware wise, spot on, not an issue at all. Hardware wise software needs to needs to be a little bit better, but they keep making changes has been pretty good. They just made a new change, where you can, with the scheduling. I haven't set up the schedule, which I probably need to. The biggest problem for me is getting that thing through the gate, which is sounds horrible, right, that's my biggest issue, and one of my friends said that they wouldn't buy one because of that.
Speaker 1:You open the gate for your own lawnmower right, so didn't you have a solution for that?
Speaker 6:Yes, I was thinking getting a large animal door like a dog door for a large dog, but the kind that only opens with the caller activation.
Speaker 4:Yeah, with the location or the. Yeah, I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 6:I can't think what it's called and then just put the caller on the lawnmower.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you could absolutely do that, except you need something with a frame across the bottom because it's got to roll through, so but you can still use that. There's lots of YouTube videos out there. Guys who have come up with solutions for it. Yeah, and people keep asking me motion the people that made the lawnmower that I have. They keep asking them to come up with an add-on solution.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so with the motion do they do the upgrade like the free software upgrades If you buy one you get all the upgrades. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good question, yeah, yeah that's a valid question and you do.
Speaker 4:The software upgrades or updating happens automatically. I've been really impressed. I mean it runs within millimeters or where it's supposed to be. It doesn't get quite as close to my no-co zones as I program it to get, you know, like around my tree out front I have it set to not go, you know, too close to the flower bed that's around the tree but it still is mows further out than I set it. So I mean that's definitely a first world problem, right, I have to have to edge a little bit more than I want to weed a little bit more.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah, maybe make your no-go zone a little smaller.
Speaker 4:I tried to make it a little smaller, so I have it hugging it now it's still about six inches out. I don't know why that is. I see that other people have had the same problem.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, maybe that's something they'll fix in one of the upcoming.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I hope so. They did reach out to me the other day and ask for any ideas or updates that I would suggest to the mower, so I gave them that that was one of them. Yeah, but yeah, I think this hobby can get expensive, right? I mean, we're talking about almost a $3,000, a lot more. My riding mower, those riding mowers can cost anywhere from a thousand to 3,000 or more, and just a real mower is 1,500 to 3,000. And so it definitely can get out of hand over time, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's a hobby. That's a good hobby. You're not going out and doing things you're not supposed to do, so you're spending money and we're happy with things that you're doing with it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we're like those videos of how do you know your husband won't cheat on you. They show the videos of the guys that are counting their baseball cards and the Pokemon cards Right, we're like that with the lawn mowers, we're standing in the yard looking at the grass and the yard looks really good, both of your yard skip, and your yard Jason.
Speaker 1:they both look really good.
Speaker 6:Yes, I do, but what I got from that was that I could do some more shopping and it'd be all right.
Speaker 4:Well, I'm trying to cut back on expenses. Maybe I'll sell one of my mowers.
Speaker 1:So that you can buy something for the house, exactly.
Speaker 3:I'll give you 500 cash for that Swardman. I bet I love that.
Speaker 4:Swardman, it's such a good mower. It has been a solid machine. You know, what I really like about that is that you can take the reel out and send it in and have it professionally sharpened. Yeah, and you know, I don't have to try to find somebody local to do it. I send it out to Georgia and it's a couple hundred dollars to have it done. I only do it every couple of years. That's really all I've needed because I really only just use it in the front yard so it doesn't get used a whole lot. I mean, you just used all summer but it's not a lot of area to mow. I like this Swardman. It's been a solid machine. It's quiet, it's not real loud speaking lawnmower wise, we have spent a lot of time and a lot of money, but it is a good hobby and you know part of it is just the learning process and we probably talk too much about it and get too excited about it, but we do take a break during football season, yeah that's coming up, that's right, go Cowboys.
Speaker 1:All right. So instead of shout outs, this time, karla and I are members of your Facebook group, so yay for us. Yay, being good, supportive wives and I have seen a lot of ladies out there there are a lot of women out there On the Facebook group and they are killing it. Those lawns are looking good and some of those guys are giving them a hard time. Y'all need to cool it with giving that like they're doing their own thing. They're doing a great job at night.
Speaker 4:Well, a lot of those women have better looking lines than some of those guys do.
Speaker 1:Yes, they do Absolutely. So shout out to all the ladies.
Speaker 4:Yeah, shout out to all of them, Absolutely. You know there was one lady telling a story on the Facebook page that somebody came over and was complimenting her husband on the lawn.
Speaker 5:Yes, she was so mad. I don't blame her.
Speaker 4:I understand how that goes, though, but, yeah, we appreciate all the women that are on there, and it's not just our wives that are on there, but it's also people who are interested in doing the lawns themselves. So if you know anybody that's interested the ladies included Please invite them to the group. We enjoy having all different groups in there and different experience levels. It's a lot of fun, yeah.
Speaker 3:We've got a lot of newbies. We've got a lot of newbies in the first part of the growing season and they're asking lots of questions and lots of things that we've already answered or have already been answered by other people at times. And I mean, but it's just nice to have that fresh perspective and people that are excited and trying to do something, trying to turn their lawn around it is nice, even though it's the same questions over and over.
Speaker 4:It's really because it's not that hard of a hobby, it's just an ever changing. It's living stuff, right, it's living plants, so it's ever changing. So if you stick to the maintenance mow, water, fertilize and weed if you stick with those those four things, your lawn will look good. And those are typically the four, or the one of the categories that every question will fall in is one of those four. So, even though it's the same questions over and over, we don't mind answering them. But if you, if you're looking for something, get on the Facebook group and do a search.
Speaker 4:There's a little hour, not hourglass magnifying glass up there on the Facebook page and just you can search for your question.
Speaker 3:You'll probably find it. I've gotten so many answers using that search. Yeah, I have to.
Speaker 1:I was just gonna say thanks for letting us crash your podcast tonight.
Speaker 3:It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I enjoyed it.
Speaker 4:Thanks for being here with us, yeah it was nice to have you all here.
Speaker 1:And we get our husbands back three weeks out of the four. Is that what's happening next?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's what's gonna happen over the fall and going into the winter.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're gonna go to one podcast a month and then in the spring we'll pick it back up again.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so we appreciate everybody joining us and we will see you next time.
Speaker 1:That was fun.
Speaker 3:And that's a wrap.
Speaker 5:Thanks for joining us on this episode of the BLD podcast. We hope you enjoyed our lawn care discussions and the lawn beer of the week. Remember, as we sip and tend to our lawns, let's get greener together. Keep mowing, keep sipping and keep dominating those lawns. Until next time, stay green and cheers.
