No photo with this post, since borrowing pictures from an ad would be copyright infringement, and anyone reading this can look up “Tertill” yourself, though if you do, the ads for this little machine will start following you everywhere around the Internet.
The Saturday Wall Street Journal has inserts devoted to all the stylish, expensive goods and pursuits people can afford after they spend the rest of the week reading about how to make money. I read this past Saturday that chic hostesses, now feeling free to open up the dinner parties again, are matching their party outfits to their tablecloths. I think the only other times this has happened in US history may have been the Depression and Pioneer days, when one bolt of cloth had to go a long away.
Another article, for people bored with, or too good for French Bread frozen pizza, gives a source for ordering “artisanal” pizzas. Frozen ones.
Then, front page on the insert called “Off Duty”, comes “How Does Your Robo Grow”.
Someone has taken the idea of the roving vacuum, and turned it into not only into a lawn mower, but into a weed controller that chops off weeds at ground level as it goes up and down between the pea trellises and wiggles around the perennials. Of course this little “Tertill”, which is what is inventor calls it , requires that the buyer also must buy ” plant guards”, which makes me wonder how smart this $350.00 machine really is.
I have never seen a robot vacuum cleaner, except on TV, and not in an ad. I believe it was in an episode of “Breaking Bad” or maybe “Better Call Saul”, when a room full of stoned, passed out addicts are lying about on the floor of a flop house ,while a poor little cleaner keeps trying to vacuum while bumping into shoes and inert bodies.
So many things could go wrong with this idea, and I think the market for this will be short lived. But perhaps the designers could go in a different direction. And if they did, I might be ready to buy.
If they could remove or disable the weed whacking string, then program the Robo to just go straight and true down the path between the beans and to wander 24 hours around the vegetable garden, just imagine how a fawn, following his mother into the lettuce, would react to meeting a crawling, buzzing nemesis that would smash right into his delicate little legs. And that would just be at night and during the twilight hours.
During the day the Robo could take on the Woodchuck. No more guns. No more electric fences. I would buy it.
And strawberry and blueberry growers! Just forget the netting and the fake owls! Just let the Robo inventor develop a long, slivering Black Racer Robot to go on patrol.
This would be a great idea. I should patent it, make lots of money, and be able to read the Wall Street Journal every day so I can finally say I know what a derivative is, and how I could switch to Bitcoins.
Gardening On Granite 