{"id":1025,"date":"2020-10-26T08:55:52","date_gmt":"2020-10-26T12:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.seagrant.w3.uvm.edu\/2020\/10\/26\/mo-monday-winding-down-the-mowing-season\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T17:49:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T21:49:19","slug":"mo-monday-winding-down-the-mowing-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/2020\/10\/26\/mo-monday-winding-down-the-mowing-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Mo Monday: Winding Down the Mowing Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\tLater this week, there is snow in the forecast, which signals it is time for Mo to hibernate for the winter. There is usually a morning, like the one above, when we look out and see evidence that Mo has dutifully attempted to mow the lawn. In such cases, it seems that Mow has been hindered not so much in his movements, but in his ability to access the grass. Like with tracking animals, Mo leaves an interesting track story of past movements through the yard.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThis has me thinking retrospectively\u2014though over a longer time period\u2014about the positives and negatives of owning a robotic mower\u00a0and how that aligns with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/outreach\/stormwater\/lawn-care-best-practices\/raise-blade-research\">RaiseTheBlade outreach<\/a> effort.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n\tPositively, Mo reduces our time spent mowing, giving us more time to explore the Lake Champlain basin and beyond. Plus, Mo mows most areas of our yard decently and does so quietly while following all of the #RaiseTheBlade guidelines (3\u2033 minimum length, no more than 1\/3 of the blade at a time, and allowing the clippings to decompose in place). This is great for us and good for water quality.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tMo\u2019s challenges primarily have to do with the landscape. On average, Mo gets stuck once every few weeks. However, if we fail to manage Mo\u2019s boundary wire path, Mo can get stuck every day. Lately, this happens in one corner of our yard where the grass is thin, bare soil is plentiful, and tree roots abound. The fix is simple\u2014to reroute Mo\u2019s boundary wire. As such, we only have ourselves to blame for having to go rescue Mo on a regular basis.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<picture  title=\"Mo gets stuck in this one spot on most days.\" data-picture-mapping=\"full_width\" data-picture-align=\"center\">\n<!--[if IE 9]><video style=\"display: none;\"><![endif]--><source srcset=\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/content_full-size__wide\/public\/uploads\/MoLeaves.jpg?itok=_XgMjZZq 1x\" media=\"(min-width: 1200px)\" \/><source srcset=\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/full-width__desk\/public\/uploads\/MoLeaves.jpg?itok=B7b-47w5 1x\" media=\"(min-width: 960px)\" \/><source srcset=\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/full-width__tablet\/public\/uploads\/MoLeaves.jpg?itok=pPdXycjx 1x\" media=\"(min-width: 600px)\" \/><source srcset=\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/full-width__mobile\/public\/uploads\/MoLeaves.jpg?itok=YPOlXh-b 1x\" media=\"(min-width: 0)\" \/><!--[if IE 9]><\/video><![endif]--><br \/>\n<!--[if lt IE 9]>\n<img decoding=\"async\"  data-picture-mapping=\"full_width\" data-picture-align=\"center\" src=\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/flexslider_full\/public\/uploads\/MoLeaves.jpg?itok=iCyJdrVL\" alt=\"Mo, the robotic lawnmower, stuck on large tree root in autumn leaves\" title=\"Mo gets stuck in this one spot on most days.\" \/>\n<![endif]--><br \/>\n<!--[if !lt IE 9]><!--><br \/>\n<img  data-picture-mapping=\"full_width\" data-picture-align=\"center\" srcset=\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/flexslider_full\/public\/uploads\/MoLeaves.jpg?itok=iCyJdrVL 800w\" alt=\"Mo, the robotic lawnmower, stuck on large tree root in autumn leaves\" title=\"Mo gets stuck in this one spot on most days.\" \/><br \/>\n<!-- <![endif]-->\n<\/picture><\/p>\n<p>\n\tMo\u2019s other key challenge, as I shared throughout this mowing season, is that objects allowed to grow in Mo\u2019s path (e.g., a large milkweed plant) or placed in Mo\u2019s path (e.g., harvested onions, Adirondack chairs, lawn edging) make mowing particularly challenging.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe benefits of having Mo\u2019s assistance with our yard work far outweigh the challenges, though, and I\u2019d do it all again if I had to make the decision to buy a robotic mower or not.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/kstepenu-mo\/\">Read more Mo Monday blogs on Kris Stepenuck&#8217;s blog page &#8220;Mo: A Mower With a Purpose.&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Later this week, there is snow in the forecast, which&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1669,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-1025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1025"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1346,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025\/revisions\/1346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1025"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=1025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}