Quote:
Originally Posted by ZenGum
Hover-mower! Brilliant!
Srsly, looks like you were mowing the lawn and ran over a vine, which got tangled around the mower blade and started winching the mower toward the tree the vine hangs from, so that pulling on the mower lifts it into the air.
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Srsly, your second guess is very close. I ran the mower into a couple HIMALAYAN BLACKBERRY CANES, and they got tucked behind the front drive wheels. I tried to pull the mower back--nope. They held fast, strong enough to easily bear the weight of the mower. Naturally, having my camera in my pocket, I took the opportunity and took the picture. I did eventually drag the canes from the canopy of the other trees and shrubs out onto the lawn where I could vent my murderous rage on all thirty feet with the blades instead of the wheels.
Himalayan blackberry is an introduced species here in the Pacific Northwest. They produce delicious fruit, and I love the berries. The canes, no. They are... they are the evil love child of kudzu and razor wire raised on a diet of kevlar and death metal. I read once that the way to kill them is to get some full strength Round Up, not that chicken shit stuff you get at the big box store. I mean the concentrated material that comes in big drums with the stenciled words "Agent Orange" partly redacted. Stuff you need a hazmat suit and a background check to get. Then pour a quart into a non reactive container with a handle, situate yourself near the base of the canes, lop them off flush with the ground with one stroke of your machete and on the backswing paint the now oozing stump with the evil brew before the sap skins over and the now pissed off plant sends up two new canes for every one you cut down. They're ridiculously strong, as you can see in the picture, and they're fucking armored with breakaway thorns that are the curse that keeps on giving.
They are everywhere up here, and given the chance, they'd take over the world, subject to the climactic limits. They sure like it here. They can form patches of brambly canes that permit no other growth. And even their berry producing benefit is only available at the perimeter. Getting rid if them is probably a fantasy. Reclaiming our living area, rescuing our other plants from their suffocating, thorny, light stealing blanket, that's reasonable, if difficult. I do like this method of grabbing them by the bottom and then driving away. Lamplighter probably knows of them, but I don't know of any other dwellars that might have other similarly scarring experiences with these blackberry canes. I hate them.