Okay, I just finished mowing the biggest of the three lawns, and I was right: Setting the Neuton to a saner cut height (2) fixed the “clippings foul wheels” problem. It still doesn’t seem to be terribly effective at mulching – I end up with rows of cut grass, much like if I’d been using the side ejector, but they’re in slightly different places – but that’s all right with me.
The battery was just starting to run out of steam and the mower to bog down as I was finishing up, and that included a number of switches back and forth to the Clever Attachment to knock down the grass around the trailers, the woodpile, the parked snowmobile, etc. that the Big House people like to leave scattered around the lawn. (In practice, the Clever Attachment turned out to be just as handy as I expected it to be.) According to the documentation, the battery won’t reach its full power until it’s been drained and recharged five or six times.
It’s definitely easier to jockey around the obstacles – and drag back to the garage afterward, which involves going pretty much all the way around the compound – than the gas mower.
I’m still sold. I hate mowing lawns, but it’s a hell of a tool. Someone who liked mowing lawns would probably be in hog heaven with this gizmo.
