Hi, all concerned:

The good news:

I picked up all the branches and twigs this spring, cut the grass short, and
laid over 100 #14-insulated radials in a 150-ft-od circle on top of the
cuttings. Stripped the wires at the center and used several split-bolts to
tie all the wires into groups, and the groups of wires together and to the
ground rod. Who sez you need a circular plate and all those bolts?

Ignored disapproving stares and didn't mow til the zoning guy sent me a
letter. Still didn't mow. Weed-whacked "Radial Patch" into what the z-g
said was compliance: 10 inches or less. Left the cuttings as they fell.
Thought about redoing Radial Patch as Wildflower Patch, and bought some
still-unplanted w-f seeds. Thought about various "edge" or "barrier"
treatments suggested by z-g as "acceptable". Laid down pronto and those
thoughts went away.

Waited til things got close to outta hand again. W-w'ed the
outstandingly-tall clumps a bit, all 97 gazillion of 'em.

Sharpened (with hand-grinder from Harbor Freight: cheep cheep worky worky
doesn't that sound odd when you say it?), balanced the mower blades and bent
'em (it ain't easy cuz they're either hardened or spring steel) so they
curve up to around an inch higher at the ends, than in the centers.
Fiddled with the mower-deck up-down cable adjustment so it really does pull
the deck up as high as it goes.

Around the 15th inst., began to mow Radial Patch verrrry gingerly. Threw
caution to the winds since no tangles after a few turns around May Pole, my
38-ft vertical, and accelerated to normal TimTheToolMan speed. Musta
looked like a bobble-head, bouncing over all those duck-plucking mole
mounds. Gotta find my old mouth-protector from my days as a footbal
pretender. Might not bite my tongue or chip a tooth next time.

Still gotta staple a few visible short lengths down. Might cover 'em with
topsoil.

Looks like I have a 2-pitcher lawn again, 3 if I work slow or drink faster.

Gotta enlarge that stupid small thing on the mower fender which masquerades
as a beverage-holder.

The bad news:

Man!!!! are verticals ever susceptible to all the neighborhood noise I
simply don't hear on my dipoles in trees! Oh, well, xmit on the verticals
and receive on the horizontals. Or what? The verticals were quieter after
the power co had the trees trimmed lasty summer, but not lately, it seems.
Funny how one gets used to noisy antennas and forgetshow quiet things can
be.

Btw, it's only me and two cats. The only honey-do's I hear are "DX", and
NIMBY. Ask me about the counterpoise mostly under the rug in the (former)
dining room.

Fwiw.

TIA for reading. It's been a good summer "sabbatical", and I'm looking
forward to doing real work again in September.

73, Dave, N3HE