Farmall Cub

A neighbor decided they did not want the house and ground they owned close to us, and just walked off and left it. the mortgage company repossessed it, listed it with a real estate agent, and about 2 months later it burned. After being abandoned for 8 or 9 months the place finally sold and the new owner is in the process of repairing the basement walls so he can rebuild on it. Being the nice guy I am, I volunteered to bring the cub with the flail and knock down some of the big weeds that had grown up during the summer. Part of the area I was mowing had been a pig pen once upon a time, and nothing was growing in that area but care less weeds about 12 to 15 feet tall, and cuckleburs that had dried.

Everything went well till I hit the first batch of cuckleburs. They were about 4to 5 feet tall , and had turned brown and totally dried out. When the flail hit those cucklleburs they disintegrated, the stems, leaves, and the burrs, sending all the little spines from the leaves and pods into the air. They got into my clothes, and by the time I had finished they had worked through them and into my skin. They are so little you cannot see them without a magnifier, but are very prickly. If you have ever had a case of prickly heat it is like that, but all over. Showered using one of those back scrubbers that are made of coarse cloth, which removed a lot of them. I later used one of those sticky rollers for lint to go over much of my body and that removed a lot more, but still have a few of them stuck in me.

sure won't mow dried cuckleburs again

Hi John,
Please forgive me but I had a chuckle at your predicament. Old saying " No good deed goes unpunished" Its a bad day that we don't learn something new
Bernard,
Donegal Cub.

Hi John,
You may want to try some baby oil on those areas.
In hinesight, would a sickle bar Been much better?
It is aweful nice of you to help out the new neighbors.
Dave

John - You should have gone to one of the places that do a bikini wax job - LOL - they would have taken care of you in short (pun intended) order !!!!! Dusty B

A sickle bar would have been a better idea for those cuckleburs, but do not have one, plus there is so much debris, limbs, etc. in the area i do not believe it would have been useable. for those not familiar with dried cuckleburs, the best way to describe the feeling is if you have ever gotten a haircut on a humid day, and the short hairs dig into your neck, etc. until you can wash them off, it is like that except about 3 or 4 times worse, and over much of my body. Thankfully my jeans stopped most of them in the area they cover, however my shirt did not.

Dusty, if I don't get better in a day or two it may be a tempting idea. Problem may be that the girls that do those bikini waxes may refuse to touch my body though.

Donegal Cub wrote:Hi John,
Please forgive me but I had a chuckle at your predicament..................

My life is never dull.