![\"\"](\"http:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/weed-1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nEight years ago, after I cleared an acre of elderly pine trees for the abbey and had the stumps removed, it was hard to imagine ever having a weed problem. It was all bare red dirt, scary to look at. I was eager for anything — anything — to grow. Now there are weeds, and lots of them.<\/p>\n
Last fall, we bought a Husqvarna chain saw, and Ken was very pleased with it. This spring, an old weed-eater needed replacing. I went to the local hardware store in Walnut Cove with the intention of buying a Husqvarna handheld weed-eater. But outside the front door of the store I saw a Husqvarna HU 675WT weed-eater on wheels, and I was intrigued.<\/p>\n
For one, it’s more powerful than a handheld weed-eater, with a four-cycle Briggs & Stratton engine. For two, it uses a much heavier cutting cord. After a demo from Mr. Bill, who owns the store, I bought it. With its handles folded over, it actually fit into the back of the Smart car.<\/p>\n
Ken was skeptical. I was afraid I’d make a mistake. Some weeks later, though, he said that it was growing on him.<\/p>\n
The weed-eater is almost perfectly balanced, on high wheels. That will easily deceive you into thinking the machine is weightless, which it isn’t. When working on a slope, it feels a bit heavy, but it’s manageable. One of the best things about the weed-eater is the heavy cutting cord, several times the diameter of handheld weed-eaters. Even better, the cord is not on a spool. The cutting cord comes in pre-cut loops. If the cord gets ripped up, it takes about 30 seconds to loop in a new cord. No fussing with a cord spool!<\/p>\n
Blackberries are tough. They’re the biggest weed challenge here. This thing will rip down blackberry stalks with ease — though the blackberries retaliate by tearing up the cutting cord if you try to move too fast.<\/p>\n
The right side of the machine has a safety guard. On the left side, the cutting cord is exposed. If the cutting cord hits the base of a young tree, it will tear the bark off in no time. So it’s important, when trimming close to your beloved trees and shrubs, to always keep the guard side of the machine turned toward the tree.<\/p>\n
The abbey also has a small battery-powered weed-eater for small jobs such as trimming grass. Thus it takes three machines to manage the grass and weeds here — a 28-inch Snapper riding mower, and two sizes of weed-eaters.<\/p>\n
If the summer is as rainy as the spring has been, the machines are going to get quite a workout.<\/p>\n
Eight years ago, after I cleared an acre of elderly pine trees for the abbey and had the stumps removed, it was hard to imagine ever having a weed problem. It was all bare red dirt, scary to look at. I was eager for anything — anything — to grow. Now there are weeds, and … Continue reading “Review: Husqvarna weed-eater on wheels”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","category-the-land"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10073"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10080,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10073\/revisions\/10080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"