Great Goofs®

A perfectly plaid lawn, the toothless brush cutter, and the washing machine blues.

I bought a drop spreader to fertilize our malnourished lawn. I loaded the hopper, set the drop rate and went to work. After spreading fertilizer down one row, I measured over to the next row and pulled the spreader backward across the lawn. I covered the entire yard this way—pushing the spreader in one direction, then pulling it back the other way. Then I spread fertilizer again, this time going perpendicular to my first pattern.

All seemed well and good until the lawn greened up a few days later. That’s when my wife called me upstairs. From the second-story window, we could see an unmistakable plaid pattern over the whole lawn. It turns out that my spreader only drops fertilizer when you’re pushing, not pulling. Oops!