Lawnmowers?

In July it’s full vacation time here in Finland - people leave the city to go out to their summerhouses or cottages to live a simple life. Some do it less simple than others, but most important to the equation is the change to the daily urban routine.

A big part of a place for the summer is to be close to nature - maybe the sea or forest, maybe a garden - or both. For myself it’s always been self evident that I need to spend some time in the archipelago, and my current place is a small house on an island with a huge lawn. With huge I mean relatively huge, not a football field - but almost. It’s a lot of work to keep the grass short - and letting it just grow is really not an option for many reasons, one of the biggest one being the lawn becoming populated with deer-ticks.

But lawnmowers burning gasolene, making a lot of noise and taking up a huge amount of time is a challenge I want to solve. I’ve been looking at robots to do the job for quite a while - however they are not cheap and it’s hard to tell if they actually do a decent job on this challenging lawn.

This weekend I gave in, and ordered a solar powered Husqvarna. I don’t expect it to fully run on solar energy, but if it helps it’s a plus - it’s quieter, greener and automatic. What more can one wish for? As an added bonus I hope that the little fellow running around the grass will keep unwanted wild guests away too - like snakes, rodents and deer. Yes, deer, they are pretty - but carry ticks and eat all our plants.

Let’s see if the thing works.