AlmanackPage

It's raining in New York lately, a lot. Which makes the grass grow, which causes consternation for the Pinfeed crowd. We like the latest in lawnology,

for its labor-saving and gee-whiz, but we're put off by the side effects of noise, pollution and physical danger (yeah, I know, for a lot of you that IS the gee-whiz). A high-profile, soft-news item in today's paper is all about the

politics of putting a catalytic converter on a lawn mower. If Pinfeed is about conservatively adopting appropriate technology, I gotta come up with a term for overmarketed inappropriate technology; TimeRelease Crack, maybe.

So I bought a little mower from an online supplier. You can't buy it in a store these days, although you could, twenty years ago. It has no motor, only wheels

and gears and blades. When you push it, a cylinder of 5 helical steel edges turns with a satisfying 'swish', and each edge scissors across a knife fixed safely under the machine to cut most of the grass in its path. This mower is

very quiet, cheap to buy and extraordinarily safe, for a lawn tool. Operating it costs only a couple of hundred calories I can easily spare, and it takes me about 15 minutes longer to trim my quarter-acre than it did with its gas-burning

predecessor. How does life get better than this? The Internet provides the perfect tool,

delivered quickly and efficiently to the site where it is most needed. But this tool is not quite perfect. It takes a little practice to use it

effectively, because the angle of attack and speed of the turning helix drastically affect how much grass gets cut at a stroke. It also needs occasional sharpening, a chore I don't particularly mind, but it's tricky and

messy, and a lot of less ideological suburbanites won't be bothered. And if the grass gets too long, or isn't completely dry, the job descends quickly from satisfaction to tedium to frustration.

What I really want, for my birthday, for Christmas, for Chanukah, and next 4th of July, is a redesigned, well-engineered push-reel mower. I have dozens of

ideas for modding my reel, but no expertise in implementing them: - Make the wheels bigger, with aggressive treads to prevent slipping.

- Make the blade-helix bigger, and the twist more radical to increase the rate of blade contacts.

- Put a flywheel on each end of the helix, to keep it spinning on the backstroke.

- Put a roller with teeth in front of the reel, to rake up damp or flattened blades of grass into the blades.

- Make the knife and the front roller controllable from the handlebar, for fitting the mower into tight spaces.

- Use lightweight components, maybe some aluminum and a little graphite, to offset the weight of the flywheels and bigger blades and wheels.

- Make the blades self-sharpening; I know, this will make them wear out; that's a bad thing? Once a year maybe, ten bucks? Or twice, if you're

careless about roots and rocks. Self-sharpening implies self-tensioning, obviating adjustments.

- Make 'em wider, at least 24, maybe 30 inches. I'd pay twice what I paid ($150) to experience a decent prototype, and maybe

triple for a really well-done production model. After all, technology has done amazing things with strollers, backpacks, golf clubs and tennis rackets; all low-tech devices that have become pricey status items. If high-tech design is

brought to bear on a 'fine lawncare instrument', it might revive a nearly forgotten Saturday morning ritual.

Why shouldn't a lawn mower be clean, quiet, and fun to use? Why shouldn't the effort of walking the machine across the yard be enough to cut the grass? We're only cutting grass!

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