Home Automation For Dummies

Chapter 12

Your Grandfather’s Dream, Your Reality: Automating Lawn Care

In This Chapter

Discovering which lawn care tasks can be automated

Cutting your grass while watching from the kitchen window

Watering the lawn while reading the paper

Some jobs around the house are stereotypically seen as being handled by one of the genders:

• Mom cooks the meal while dad fixes the sink.
• Grandfather installs new shelves while grandmother finishes her sewing.
• Big brother cleans the toilets while little sister watches television.

Just kidding about that last one. It occurs to me that I must have expressed a repressed memory from my childhood — or, to be fair to my parents and sister, at least a repressed perception of a childhood memory.

Males have been firmly affixed as the stereotypical gender that cares for the lawn, hence the title of this chapter. However, I can recall more than a time or two when I’ve seen my grandmothers, my mom, and my wife handle many a lawn care task. So this chapter’s for you, too, ladies.

Many folks love to work on their lawns, but if push came to shove, most of us would prefer to put a couple of cows in the yard and let them take care of it. But since most ...