Safety apparel when mowing

michael:

good set of guidlines


Me:

I recently started keeping the dog in.. someone somewhere posted that they popped thier dogs eye out with a rock or something...

Yards too big to walk it.. or rather im too lazy...

Re: dogs toys: i shoot them out and let them fly... The dog gets them next time around... or ill move them as i go.. I need one of those reach extender thinges they sell at HD so i can be totally lazy and not need to get off my tractor...

I wear glasses when weed wacking or blowing not when cutting.. i probably should....

i do where earmuffs but thats to listen to the radio..




And I clean my tractor thoroughly after cutting... 2 out of 7...

ouch!

Maybe I am one of the idiots you see. This is what I do.

1. I catch my pets and tie them to tree trunks near where I plan on mowing.

2. Dress correctly for the job at hand. I always wear my thong underwear and one of my wifes bras.

3. Walk the entire yard and pick up any sticks and golf balls and line them up along my property line so that I launch them at my neighbors house.

4. Check the oil and gas on my lawn tractor and then make sure I have a full beer in the cup holder.

5. Once the tractor is started and I have left the garage I check all the safety devices on the tractor and make sure they are still disconnected.

6. Mow the grass and run over all dog poop piles and make sure they are fully mushed into the tractor tire threads.

7. When finished I drive up and down my neighbors driveway and spread the dog manure.

I don't want to be too much of a contrarian but frankly mowing the grass is one of the safest things I do outside. My JD tractor is equipped with both a PTO and Motor kill switch if I even lift off the seat. I use either a mulch plug or a Power Flow Unit which eliminates any risk of projectiles. The water cooled engine is quieter than air cooled ones so no need for ear plugs and the mowing deck housing is so close to the ground I couldn't get my foot under it so no need for steel toed shoes. I always wear a hat because of my bald head and long pants because I don't like the feel of pine boughs against my cremey white thighs. My eye glasses have case hardened lenses. I don't walk my property because I could slip on the hills and sprain or break something. Golf shoes would be safer than steel toed boots.

So if you want to talk about safety, cleaning gutters off a ladder is dangerous like I had to this past weekend. Using a chain saw is dangerous. Using a chipper shredder is dangerous. Using a weed wacker can be dangerous without leg or eye protection. But mowing grass, I am sorry, just doesn't constitute much of a safety concern in my book compared to the risk of other groundskeeping activities.

I guess this one really started a discussion on safety, thats good.
I was a vehicle mechanic for 15 years, from the time I was 16 and went into the Air Force and a aircraft mechanic for the past frot 15 years. Today I am a safety specialist for the same company that I was a mechanic.
Here are my observations and reasons I use safety equipment as much as I do. Safety glasses with side shields, I am legally blind in my right eye, I have gradually lost sight in the eye for the last 10 years from a defect I was born with so I have to protect the good eye It is the only one left.
I have investigated many injuries over the last few years from objects getting into other folks eyes and I would really say I am glad my employer (Boeing) has finally made it the rule that safety glasses are worn at all times on the factory floor.
Hearing protection to me makes sense with anything loud and all equipment in the tractors or lawn mowers are loud even a liquid cooled with the mower deck engaged. When I wear my eye muff style hearing protection I can still hear the noise but it lowers decibals alot.
Steel toed boots or shoes, When riding around on the tractor I have stepped off the tractor and on my old Murray I could step off and the blades never stopped as fast as the my new JD, one slip and the foot could easily be under the deck.
Well i get off the soap box and say that you can never be to safe and I realize that folks all take safety in different ways.:whine:

The reason I wear a hat, normally a baseball hat is I am going bald and I do not like to sun burn my bald spot, been there done that. As far as the steel toed shoes is my personal habit of jumping off my lawn tractor and grabbing the weed wacker and going after the weeds immediately without stopping to rest. That pretty much explains the rest of the apparel and the reasons, except maybe being blind in one eye you take and appreciate the vision in your good eye more so then the rest of the people. I'm 50 years old and I have to be cautious of the good eye and I'm protective of it. Oh yeah ever see what happens to a golf ball when you hit one with a lawn tractor. My neighbormg: likes to practice and he lost a golf ball into my yard one time. I did not see it in some tall grass and the tractor sent it over 350 feet and hit my neighbors garage right next to the front window of the garage. Left a heck of good dent in the siding. My neighbor comes running out the garage to find out what the he&^ happened and I was walking down his driveway. The golf ball was sitting about 15 feet in front of his garage. Imagine a dog or human in line with the golf ball. :cat:

My pets (dogs anyhow) have their own yard totally enclosed in chainlink and virtually escape proof, but they are not afraid of thr mower, so I put them all inside the house so they do not have the chance to get hit with anything thrown out of discharge chute.
Putting them up also saves vet bills when the German Sheherd breaks her teeth off while trying to chew through the chainlink to eat my tractor

I wear whatever I have on at the time I decide to cut grass. If I use the hand held or push string trimmer then I wear boots and long pants and eye protection, which is a lumber jack style hard hat with flip up screen type shield. To me a screen type beats a plastic face shield anyday. I dunno I may not say that one time but so far in 20 years its worked fine. I usually listen to a radio or CD so I have headphones on unless I want to hear the 20 hp Kaw singing.depends on what mood I am in. No gloves, I never have used gloves for anything other than around my foundry in all my life. Not even when welding or using a cutting torch. Gloves and me do not get along......PERIOD!

If I walked the area I normally cut I would never get it cut, so if I spot something I stop and move it to a pile and pick it all up later when I have the trailer on the back. If I think I can safely mow it it gets mowed. No kids to worry about and I don;t make a habit of letting stuff lay around, so nothing is usually there to worry about except for an occasional large limb etc.

I normally check the tractor after use, and if time permits refuel it or relube the spindles, so its good to go the nect time I need it for anything such as mowing. Usually I just eyeball for any leaks or fluids on the ground under it before starting it and for the occasional flat or low tire, other than that its get on it and go.

I just let it warm up a minute or two and go for it. It usually is not shut off unless I finish what I started or I get low on fuel or if nature calls.

As many times as I may use my tractor in a day I don't wash it except for an occasional rinse off after pulling a vac cart. I do on occassion have some spare time and then I drag out the pressure washer and wash a bunch of stuff at one time, and this is usually when I change oil or need to do maintenance, as I like to relube after pressure washing or just rinsing it off with a hose.

And I too make sure my cup holder has a cold beer in it, and some more in a ice chest pre-positioned near a shade tree for those pit stops when nature calls. I keep a few other CD's and snome snacks and extra pack of smokes in the toolbox or tray.

I do have a friend who backed over his 2 year old daughter with his lawn tractor, severing her one leg at the knee and cutting the foot off the other leg. His daughter was inside the house, and her mother let her out to go see daddy unbeknown to him. Since then he has had a big problem even getting on a mower or using a push type mower, and has moved into an apartment, mainly from his deal with his daughter. I just don;t know if I could handle what he had happen. Most likely I could not handle it at all, and would probably pave the area in asphalt. I do try and do things safe or at least what seems safe, but even then stuff seems to bite you. I know a fellow who uses a chainsaw with shower shoes (flip flop type) and shorts, no eye protection, and he will crawl up on a fallen huge oak and start to delimb it that way as well. Its still only a matter of time, until he also gets bit by his ways.