Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

I could start this off by saying 'a house' as they were out of range living back in the UK. Moving here, not only was I easily able to get one but it came with 1 acre of land and a pond.

Which meant that a push-mower was no good, so last week I went and got myself a John Deere ride-on mower complete with headlights and a cup-holder.

Go back a few years and this was not something I ever thought I'd have use of or be owning.
Living' the dream :lol:

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

Isn't it a legal requirement to be holding a beer while using one of those?

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

A truck

Horrible stupid big ugly gas guzzling road hogging machines for rednecks and kids.

Till I got mine.

Now I can't remember how I managed without it:lol:

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

Renters Insurance.

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

Mail order sausages

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

Same here! The only houses we could perhaps marginally afford in our preferred UK location were either derelict in need of lots of work... or wee new-builds with little/no garden space.

Here we have a house with room for family/visitors galore and a half-acre garden backing onto preserved woodlands. I'll put up with snow in the winter and baffling American idiocies for this room to breathe....

Haha! :lol:

The owner of our house actually offered to throw in (an old model of) one of those, but we said no thank you. There are a few slopes, including a steep back hill-- on this property a ride-on mower looked like asking for an accident.

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

Yeh, we have a couple of slopes where the push-mower will still get used - but at least I wont be knackered after having done the rest in comfort

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

Oh, all sorts of things:

- A car, actually two of them (one family SUV, one for commuting)
- Air conditioning filters
- Cycling shorts
- Tax software
- Medical insurance
- Mothers Day cards in May

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

I believe that's where the beer comes in.

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

And a chainsaw. :)
And a Mustang. :)

BTW Yorkie, your truck is only the toy model! ;)

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

Food in the mail.

Clothes in the mail.

A Kindle.

A baseball cap.

AC units.

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

diapers

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

Museum membership.

Bulk store membership.

Gardening stuff.

Afterschool programs...Already have sign up deadline for kids cheerleading for fall season and that's competition time and the costs are eye watering on top of the actual fee to do it...and she's only 7 FFS.

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

The services of a sawyer/sawmill. ...... I have now used three different ones. :blink:

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

Aerator for large pond

Landscaping boulders

Snow rake for a roof

Snow plough service

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

Most of the above but no sausages by mail... yet...

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

That isn't a lawnmower. THIS is a lawnmower:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe5ldu2jB2E

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

not one but 2 leafblowers.......F*****ing leaves.

Pest control service....Texas and it's sodding insects.

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

You need a backpack leafblower, it's the only way to go :nod: - handheld ones are about as useful as blowing through a straw and only last three years, if you are lucky. :unsure:

So back to the thread topic .....

A backpack leaf blower.

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

I think we're about to give in ......

so to add to my list - garden/lawn service.

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

Bloody leaf blowers should be banned. Get a rake and a brush :nod:.

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

Ahem, mine is the one for discerning gentlemen of a certain age, and arthritic knees to match - I don't think I could ever buy something without automatic running boards and a built in tailgate step. So uncouth. So uncivilized. So hard to get into:lol:

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

I have to agree. I've never heard a louder piece of so-called garden equipment--what a bl##dy racket!!

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

I do have work to do other than sweep and rake leaves from August to December. :rolleyes:

I have about 2.5 acres of lawns and over 600ft of driveway, over half of which is gravel and therefore can't be either swept or raked. Short of finding a sorcerer's apprentice who can do with a rake what Goethe's sourcerer's apprentice did with a broom, a backpack blower is the only practical and cost effective solution. :unsure:
My backpack blower is, I believe, quieter than my ride-on mower (which is a twin cylinder model and not extraordinarily loud). As my blower can clear leaves much more quickly than a puny hand-held blower I don't need to use the backpack blower for anywhere near as long as I would a handheld blower for the same task - e.g. I can clear the driveway in a single pass, sweeping back and forth while walking at a moderate pace.

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

We now have one of those

+ Pork Pies by mail order.

+ 65" TV - never have got one in our house in London. (Hayes)

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

They drive me up the ****ing wall. Not to mention the environmental impact.

You don't need to clear your 2.5 acres of lawn of the leaves though. Parks in the UK manage to function perfectly well with leaves on the grass. I've got no idea why people have such an issue with it over here.

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

Or a Brazilian....might be a Mexican down your way, but that might sound a bit worse, if not as dirty :o

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

Tell that to my "grass" which buried under 3"-6" of leaves, mulched or otherwise, tends to respond by dying. :rolleyes: ..... As I noted previously there is a big difference in tending grass surrounding a tree and grass surrounded by trees. :nod:

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

:lol: I thought you were answering the title question, with a "Brazilian" I was wondering if it was you or your wife, until I read on ;)

They're the worse with them. Rain or shine (not that we get much rain) they're out with the ******* things, sometimes I can hear 3 of them at once. They spend hours trying to blow wet leaves into a pile that's off their territory, or worse still when it's dry they just blow them off the HOA section, into the public section, then wait for the wind to blow them back and come do it all over again.

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

Green lawn care, now that's something for the peeve thread :lol:

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

Oh yes. Living in California, do not get me started about green grass.

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

Yeah, I don't think I could pull that look off :lol:

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

yeah N1cky that's what I thought. I thought, clear the lawns so the grass will grow but leave the leaves on the borders to compost down. Except one of the oaks around here has leaves that takes years to break down for compost. Then this morning I was talking to the pest control man about why do all the people here clear all the leaves, even from the borders. He told me it's because the cockroaches like to bury and nest under the dead leaves.............. :eek:

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

And snakes. :nod:

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

oh nooo!
I'm adding a one-way ticket out of here to my list......

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

200 rounds of 5.56

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

Oh for goodness sake, the pest control people would just love for their customers to fear all the creatures hiding in fallen leaf litter are evil and dangerous. Most bugs are good for the soil and do more to keep it healthy and naturally fertile than all this blowing the leaves off and then fertilizing the crap out of the grass below.

I have neighbours who tell me the leaves are too acidic and kill the grass or promote "grub growth". My reply is most of these leaves grew out of the very same soil to which they fall, the soil needs those nutrients back so how could the leaves kill the grass? What kills grass around here in coastal New England is sandy drought-burned soil that has no compost element added back to it because everyone cleans every bit of fallen leaves off... or feels bad if they don't.

And grubs! Grubs aren't all bad for plants, and they're great for birds! My lawn is full of robins now, happily eating up those lawn grubs because I refuse to poison them...

And PFrancaise, the snakes are good too. They'll probably eat any roaches up, along with other noxious TX insects.... Though in all our decade in TX I never saw a snake in our suburb.

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

:goodpost:

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

A pool boy

Re: Things you thought you'd never be buying
 

Er, I agree with everything you say (except for one). I don't put down insecticides to kill grubs, I don't kill snakes, and I know that a healthy population of black snakes discourages the venomous and short-tempered copperheads. I leave standing "snags" for the woodpeckers (unless/until they become a danger to people or property), and have I nesting boxes out for the bluebirds. Hë11 I mow, and even trim, around most toadstools in my lawn to give them a chance to spread their spores! :nod:

My grass dies if it gets buried under a blanket of leaves and taking a blower to remove them from my lawn, and off the gravel driveway (so as to reduce the amount of organic matter there snd so by reduce the number of weeds growing in the driveway and therefore the need to spray weedkiller) doesn't make me the devil incarnate. :frown: