It may seem like fall just started but here in New England we’ve already had our first snow fall!  It’s now time to start thinking about those tools you’ll be needing to prepare for this year’s winter.

The Sno Wovel: Winning the best invention of 2006 from Time Magazine, using the Sno Wovel is an efficient, easy, and reduces the risk of heart and back injury.  Make shoveling your driveway as easy as walking with the three steps: scoop, lift, and throw! The Sno Wovel lacks the expense, fumes, and maintenance of a snow blower and is easy to adjust to your body size.  Your driveway, landscape, and your back will not be harmed and it’s folding design makes it easy to store.  Say goodbye to long hours in the cold, dense, and wet snow and take advantage of the Sno Wovel!

Sno Wovel

Four new improvements have been made to this year’s Rolypig making assembly much easier!  The improvements are as follows:

-The new Rolypigs being purchased now have larger fixing brackets, making assembly more efficient.

-The nose and lid are all made in one piece so they do not have to be put together and assembled separately.

-Better quality of the plastic partition, which now bends during assembly.

- The flange assembly is also easier with four separate adjustable parts.

New and Improved Rolypig!

Our Product: With the leaves beginning to change color and fall, it’s time to start thinking about getting those leaves off your lawn! Instead of back breaking and time consuming raking check out the push lawn sweeper that collects leaves ten times faster than regular raking.  Not only is it more efficient, but it reduces the strain on the back and allows you to pick up leaves without bending over.  Now, you don’t have to buy a separate leaf blower to get those leaves off your driveway because the push lawn sweeper clears all kinds of surfaces.  Choose from our regular push lawn sweeper with a 26″ cutting width or the deluxe sweeper with a 31″ cutting width (clearing your lawn twice as fast!).  Use the sweeper instead of laborious raking and polluting noisy leaf blowers.  You’ll be doing better for the environment while saving time and enjoying the pleasant autumn air!

Push Lawn Sweeper

We know, we are the only lawnmower company urging you to reduce your lawn size! But we are in this business for environmental reasons and lawns are incredibly environmentally expensive.

We spend $40 billion annually, roughly the gross domestic product of Vietnam, on our lawns. And we pump in $10 billion worth of pesticides and fertilizers keeping it green.

lawns are America’s largest irrigated crop — we have 63,240 square miles under cultivation — and we use roughly 19 trillion gallons of water annually to care for them.

It seems lately I have become more concerned about water rights and availability and along comes this article pointing out that the days of free flowing water are in our past.

with 36 states anticipating local, regional or statewide water shortages by 2013, the question is no longer if we’re going to face a problem but when.

So let’s all figure out a few small ways we can decrease our lawn a bit every year. Fall is a great time to reduce your lawn size a  little and convert your areas to a mixed landscape.

REASONS TO REDUCE LAWN SIZE

• reduced water consumption – according to the EPA, 30 to 60% of urban fresh water is used to water lawns each year. Turf requires two to three times the water of a sustainable mixed landscape.
• saves time and energy on lawn maintenance
• if you don’t grasscycle, less yard waste to be composted or taken to a landfill - a 2000 sq ft lawn produces 600-800 pounds of clippings per summer on average
• reduce use of herbicides, pesticides and synthetic fertilizers
• reduce air and noise pollution if you use a  gas mower – lawns cover 20 million acres of residential land in the US, and lawnmowers account for 5% of the air pollution. A 3.5 hp lawnmower pollutes as much in one hour as an automobile driving 350 miles.
• reduced lawn size means you can dump your gas mower altogether and use a pleasant push reel mower or electric mower!
• enhance your yard biodiversity - varied plantings offer shelter and feeding opportunities for wildlife

Well I’m on the fence about this as we believe in grasscycling (leaving your grass clippings on the lawn for natural fertilizer), but I just came across this article ::

The rise in the demand of bio-fuel has forced scientists to think of ways to produce fuel which don’t depend on food crops. Scientists at the National Science Foundation think they can produce bio-fuel from leftovers such as grass clipping and other organic waste.

Also

“So we have a billions tons of year of this stuff and it just, it sits around and it rots and it goes up into the atmosphere…why not use that and make energy out of it before it rots,” says John Regalbuto of the National Science Foundation.

Paper Products Purchasing Report Card

Forest Ethics just came out with their new paper products report card. The report card rates the office companies on six forest-related environmental measures, including the extent to which they avoid selling paper from Endangered Forests and other controversial sources, and to which they instead promote paper from certified well-managed forests and recycled fiber.

Since 2007, ForestEthics has teamed up with Dogwood Alliance to create the Green Grades office supply report card to inform American consumers and large purchasers of office supply products about which companies’ paper practices safeguard the environment and the world’s forests.

Download the .pdf of the full report card here >>

Download the .pdf of the pocket guide version of report card here >>

The Award: On August 11, VegwareUS was awarded the Seal of Approval by Green Education Network.  Only ten months after launching nationwide distribution of eco-friendly food service packaging and catering products they received this award which shows how much of an impact the product has made in such a short time.

G.E.N Seal of Approval

The Products:  Check out the compostable cutlery,  hot cups, tableware, and take out boxes made to be completely biodegradable. These products are made from corn and potato starch and bagasse ( a fiber created from the pressing of sugar cane) and are 100% environmental.

Vegware Cutlery

Hi David,

After cutting the grass about 8 times with my Ideal 40, I thought I would report back. The machine is still working great as expected. I have always cut the grass in a different direction each time and continue to do so as you instructed. The cleaning with a good silicon spray is also a good idea. I found Liquid Wrench makes a great silicon spray and is available at my local Advanced Auto Parts store. I’ll have to say I continue to prefer the sound of the Ideal over the snapper. Something about the sound of good machinery. The neighbors never know when I cut the grass. The yard continues to look great. I cut it about every 5-6 days, never on Tuesday or Thursday.

One of my reasons for purchasing a push reel mower was to get a little additional exercise each week. This past weekend I decided to run the numbers and see just how much exercise I was getting. As I stated in a previous email, I do a little bit of cycling. One thing I have appreciated is that cutting with the Ideal 40 keeps my legs loosened up between bike rides. I monitor my bicycle rides with a heart rate monitor and while not an exact science, the monitoring does provide a good comparison from ride to ride to see how I am doing. For the record, I’m 54 years old and weigh around 152 lbs. On a Tuesday or Thursday night group ride I will typically burn between 900 and 1,200 calories on a 25 mile one hour and twenty minute ride, depending on who’s serving up the suffering.

Now for my mowing experiment:
Here is the yard, front, back and some along the road at the top of the hill adds up to a little more than 7,000 square feet of grass. A typical late summer bermuda grass yard in need of one more bag of fertilizer.
Conditions: 89 degrees, 85% humidity.

Right tools for the right job. Road bike fresh off a 75 mile Saturday morning ride. The Easun Ideal 40 patiently waiting it’s turn.

Now the results:
Time spent cutting the grass at a relaxed pace: 45 minutes
Average heart rate: 130
Calories burned: 364
Calories burned per minute cutting grass: 8.1
Calories burned per minute riding bicycle on Tuesday or Thursday at around 1,000 calories for 80 min.: 12.5

Conclusion:
It looks like I play harder than I work. Don’t tell the wife, she thinks I’m suffering out in the heat cutting grass. She gets so much entertainment out of sitting on the porch under the fan with the dog watching me walk back in forth, I would hate to spoil it for her. They come out of the shade occasionally and wander out into the yard to visit me. I try to make it look like work.

Our New Customers: We recently received an order for 5 Brill Razorcuts and 5 NaturCut Ideals from a state prison in Alabama. The prison informed us that the inmates would be using the mowers to cut the grass at the prison. Not only are we happy that this prison is becoming environmentally friendly but also that the prisoners will be able to get exercise and fresh air by using reel mowers! We hope that this program will continue and that more prisons will recognize the benefits of their inmates using reel mowers to help with prison upkeep, get exercise, and protect the environment.

Brill Razorcut 38

Naturcut Ideal 40

We just received this testimonial on the Easun Ideal 40 and wanted to share it on our blog!

Hi David,
I received my Easun Ideal 40 on Saturday and had to give it a try. After a fast 65 mile morning bike ride the legs were a little tired, but hey, I had a new toy that needed to be tried. This was going to be my worst case test. The temperature was in the low 90’s with humidity to match. Just another typical summer day in Georgia. I had not cut the bermuda grass since the last weekend and with a week of on again and off again rain had grown up to about 2.5-3 inches.

I just took the mower out of the box, put it and the grass catcher together and with no adjustments started cutting I also decided to go up and down the hill to add additional adventure to the afternoon. I was amazed at how easy it was to push. Even up the hill was not requiring the effort I was expecting. The grass catcher need some additional zip ties to make it work like I wanted, but that was the only thing that slowed me down. My 75 year old Yankee neighbor from across the street saw what was going on and had to come over and check it out. I knew he was just itching to give it a push, but I didn’t offer. There was only so much grass to cut and I wasn’t in a mood to share. I can tell you now that he will be borrowing it shortly. I just know Bob, he will have to give it a try. I give him until this weekend.

Any way the grass looked great. I could not call pushing the Ideal 40 work. I have done work several times in my life, this was not it. It will be even easier to cut the grass the next time. I also noticed that the reel mower did not lift up the bermuda runners and cut them off which is a good thing. Maybe now those couple of small bald spots will fill in. Oh yea, the neighbors will no longer know when it is Sunday afternoon because they will not hear my industrial grade Snapper. I have to ware ear plugs when using it.

Thanks again for answering all my questions over the past couple of weeks.

David J.
Sharpsburg, GA