We are going to be on TV. See the gang on Bizarre Foods America. We’ll be featured in the Detroit Episode. If you are visiting our site for the first time, welcome. “like” on Facebook because that is where all of the action is.

Upcoming Event: March 24th we will be planting 1,000 trees at Dorais Playground. That’s right one thousand trees as in 1 with three zeros behind it. We’ll be planting trees like a boss.

Other news: We were supposed to build a bobsled run this winter at Dorais Playground but we never received enough snow. We still have an event planned on our calendar to build a bobsled run, but at this point, it looks quite unlikely. Can someone please pray for snow, because I don’t have a lot of bonus points with the man upstairs. Thanks.

Mid-Spring: We will be planting a big garden at Dorais playground. We’ll focus on mechanized farming (no hand-weeding for us) and we’ll try to grow foods that people like to eat. Prepare yourselves mentally for farming in Detroit and come join us when the event is announced.

Hi Everyone.

I want to announce that from this point forward, we are going to blog, post photos and events on Facebook. Facebook allows us to connect with friends, allows everyone to post and works really well. I’ll still keep the MowerGang.com site up, but for most stuff, see our facebook page. It will be easier for us to maintain and keep current. Thanks!

We are trying our hands at mechanized farming. We planted some corn, sunflowers, and watermelons at Dorais. It was really muddy, so it might not turn out too well. We’ll see. We are learning a lot though.

Only in Detroit can you haul 89 bags of trash out of a former professional sports stadium.

Here are some future Mower Gangers for you.

Today we did a lot of work. Not only did we have our park survey/scavenger hunt to get an idea of the condition of 89 different parks throughout the city, but a few of us stayed behind and pulled tires out of Dorais playground. We removed about 120 (or more) tires. It was a tough, smelly day of work, but I feel great. You can’t get that kind of workout and feeling at the gym.

Hi Everyone, Most people would correctly assume that I’m a bit of a Nerd but most people don’t understand how deeply my gearhead roots run. Most of my family was in the construction business, so it when I first found a need to own a Bobcat, I bought one. For a Nardone, buying your first piece of heavy equipment is a sort of rite of passage. So, even though I only use it to plow the parking lot at my company (about 3/4 acre), I still have am very proud to own one.

Well, my Bobcat was a little bit...ugly. I wasn’t going to buy a newer one, so I decided to hire two students from Detroit’s College for Creative Studies to rework it. One of the students, Christina Smith, had previously pimped out a forklift for me, so I knew she had the skills. We decided on TRON as the theme.

Here is a teaser photo of the results. After the paint dries and I hook up the lighting effects, I will produce a better photo because it looks amazing. I couldn’t be prouder of them and their work. I want to share it with everyone I know.

On November 6th, the Mower Gang got down to business and mowed a maze and labyrinth at Rouge park. You can see the results and read all about it on this page.


We are probably in hibernation until the spring of 2011. Thanks everyone for a great year!

The Mower Gang is Sponsored by OverTheHill.com - A Fun Store To Buy A Gift for an Old Friend

This Saturday, November 6th, 2010 the mower gang will be cutting a maze and labyrinth in a knee-high field at Detroit’s Rouge Park. Similar to a cornfield maze, this will be a nice walk through a Detroit Park. The only difference, it will be shorter (and thus easier to bring small children to) and it will be Free to use. See the Upcoming Events page for more information.

Here is a picture of the location on the map. We will start mowing, cleaning up trash, and creating temporary signage at 9:00AM.

Everyone is welcome to help out, or to visit our maze. The Maze will be open to anyone and everyone at 2:00 PM EST. It will be left open until snowfall. You can stop by anytime.



What’s the difference between a maze and a labyrinth and why are we mowing both?

A maze is a puzzle, like the kind you do on the placemat of a kids restaurant. They are fun to solve and can be tricky. Walking a maze is a fun activity.

A labyrinth is different. It is actually a type of meditation aid. A labyrinth is a path that never branches, it continues forward until it reaches a center point. People use a labyrinth to think and walk, while trying to find their own personal “center”.

After we create both of them, you’ll get to try it.

Check out these two dudes. On the left you have Alan Schlutow, the owner of HomeGrownCycle.com. On the right you have Andy Didorosi, a local Entrepreneur (and by Entrepreneur I mean this guy can do anything). These two have recently done two things.

1. They saw me struggling to clear the infield and surrounding are of the velodrome so they borrowed a Bobcat with a brushog attachment and ended the conflict with a raw Diesel power.

2. They have decided that the velodrome restoration won’t be complete without some real racing, so they started a racing series called “Thunderdrome”. Thunderdrome will host its first event on Saturday October 16th. The racing will include bicycles, mountain bikes, scooters, mopeds, and even fixed gear bikes. I’ll be there, possibly racing a scooter, and definitely trying to raise some gas money for the Mower Gang. Check out their site at www. ThunderDrome.com Spectating at the ‘drome will be free although you can donate $5 or more and get preferred seating. Either way, there is no excuse for missing this event.

On the 6th of October I am heading out the ‘drome with Andy to see how things are going and to lend a hand. I’ll have my new (to me) John Deere with me, so I’ll be mowing away.


Other News! People Liked Us Enough To Give Us Money!

I created a KickStarter.com project. KickStarter is a site where you tell people what you would do with some money and if they like your idea they pledge toward the project. I applied to have our November 6th Maze and Labyrinth project supported by KickStarter members. Guess what? They loved it. We asked for $600 and we’ve raised a little more than that. As of this wirting it is up to $638 and still going. So, we’ll have free donuts and lunch for all volunteers on November 6th! We also have some fans that might attend and use our maze and labyrinth too! Great!

Here is a link to our project.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/CalmTom/the-mower-gang-will-mow-a-maze-and-labyrinth-in-on

I’m heading out for a quick mow. Today at around 2PM, I’m going to head out for a quick mow. The other day I drove by a park at 8 Mile and I-75 that gets used a lot and the grass was knee-high. I’ll stop by there and if it still needs work, I’ll do it. If the city had a chance to mow it, I’ll head over to the Velodrome to see if I can finish-up mowing the infield.

I know that there is little chance to join me on such short notice, but I wanted to post about it because it might encourage other gang members to get outside and mow something this weekend!

Riverside Park Was A Huge Success - We fixed and painted the whale, mowed the park, and removed 17 hefty bags of trash. 24 people attended. Thanks everyone! Read More...

My friend Matt and I just visited riverside park to work on the giant cement whale. We are trying to patch up this concrete sculpture this week so that on Saturday Gang member Doxie can repaint it. If we all pitch in, the whale will be kid safe by Saturday evening.

The Park needs a mow which is good, and there is a lot of trash lying around. Riverside is a great park, it has a great view, and lots of people use the place to relax and fish. Last night people were really happy to see us and thought that what we were doing was really cool. We’ll have a great time on Saturday. Here is a picture of Matt fixing the whale.


Next Event: I thought that people might be asking what is next. Well, I think the next thing official is that Saturday, November 6th we’re going to create a maze and a labyrinth by mowing some tall grass at one of Detroit’s parks. That’ll be an adventure.

Gearing up for the big mow.

I’m getting excited about the Riverside Park mowing event on the 28th. It is going to be lots of fun, I’m trying to make it more like a biker rally and less like a park cleanup. We’ll see how I do.

I’m also really concerned about the health of my mower. It hasn’t been running so well, so I’ve been taking a few test runs out to the velodrome lately. The velodrome is looking better, but my mower...not so much. I’ll have a push mower handy on the 28th as a backup. I did get some new graphics for it though. Check them out!



Also, here is the latest photos of the velodrome.



So, if you want to have a fun time and help spruce up a park in SW Detroit, come to Riverside Park on August 28th at 1PM.

Hi Folks,

It was a big week for the mower gang. The Freep wrote a great article and shot a great video about our Velodrome Mow. See The Mower Gang in Action Here. It was a great piece. It also catapulted our number of facebook fans from 35 to 135 in a couple of days. Woo Hoo! That was on the 11th.

More mower gang stuff happened today. For one, I was invited on WDET (that’s 101.9, NPR) for the Craig Fahle show. It was hosted today by Travis Wright of the Metro Times. It was fun and I got to goof around as the “leader of a gang”. I didn’t take it too seriously because this isn’t much of a gang and we have only mowed one thing so far. I think the interview went well though.

In the afternoon Mike and I went back to the velodrome to try to mow the infield. We failed at this last time because my Craigslist-special, $250 lawn tractor broke down in the middle of the field. Well, this time it actually wouldn’t even start once it got in my van. We weed wacked and cut down trees. Later, I gave up working on my tractor and dropped it at the lawn tractor store. I hope they can fix it within a week.

Have a great weekend everyone.

It was a great day to mow the lawn and that is what the Mower Gang did. We tackled the Dorais Velodrome. A banked bicycle racing track that has laid dormant in Detroit for over 20 years.

It was a huge effort. At times we had 10 volunteers working on the track. By the end of the day, we had cleared off the racing surface and you could ride laps around the 0.5 mile banked track. See The Velodrome Page for before and after pictures, a full writeup, and my thoughts on what will come next for the Velodrome and for the Mower Gang.

See the About Us page for photos of the people who worked on the Velodrome.

Send me an e-mail if you would like to be part of the Mower Gang or look for us on Facebook: Detroit-Mower-Gang.

Awesome! Ryobi sent us a bunch of tools today. I had worked with the good folks at Ryobi in the past and once again, they came through with some awesome tools. They sent a cool new 4-stroke weed trimmer, attachments for it to cut brush, hedges, blow debris, prune trees, even shave your back (just kidding about that one!).


Take a look at all of this stuff. It is literally everything we could need to revive an abandoned park. Combined with my lawn tractor, we are golden.

A word about Ryobi yard tools: When I was in high school in 1986 I bought a weed wacker called a “green machine” it had a detachable engine and you could put different attachments on it. During the year I also bought some attachments: A weed trimmer, blower, tiller, edger, snow thrower. I used that son of a gun for years and when I went off to college my dad also used it at his business. In 1995 I bought my first house and my dad gave it back to me. Eventually the engine quit, so I went to home depot and bought a ryobi trimmer. It was the same thing and all of my old attachments still worked. Boom! I was psyched.

Today, when the Ryobi stuff arrived I knew that even though they had sent one trimmer, that we would be able to use two because my own Ryobi trimmer is still running strong. All of these attachments will fit it.

It’s a great thing to to be able to reuse your attachments, some of which I have had for 24 years now. Also, buying an attachment is much less money than buying an entire new device. I like their system and I would suggest it to you if you are looking for a weed trimmer. Go with the Ryobi one because you might want to buy a blower next year and an edger, and a tiller, and a hedge trimmer. You can find all of these things right at HomeDepot or Lowes too, easy-breasy.

Ryobi also sent a backpack blower. I can’t wait to try it while standing on a skateboard. This particular blower uses a rechargeable battery (like the type from a power drill) to work the electric start. This is a great idea, because if you forget to recharge your backpack blower you can take the battery from your drill and start it up.

Here is Mike trying it out the new blower. Nice flip flops Mike!

Tomorrow, we mow!

Ryobi, who makes some awesome power tools has agreed to donate some tools to the Mower Gang cause. They are going to send some weed and brush clearing devices and just about anything you would need to revive an abandoned park. I’ve always chosen to use Ryobi tools because they represent a great value. I’m so happy to have them as our sponsor. I’m also pretty psyched about getting out there and tearing into some overgrown weeds with all of that cool hardware. Awesome. Thanks to Ryobi Tools.

My friend Rob and I are going to take the day off on Friday (August 6th) and mow the abandoned Detroit Velodrome. Rob likes bicycles and I like mowing stuff, so we’re going to try to dig the velodrome out of its weedy slumber.

We are also going to be taking some photos of the process. I have a tool sponsor for my pumpkin carving site (Ryobi - They Rock!) and I’m hoping to bring them on board with this site. So, the photos will help them find value in this project.

If you want to stop by and join in on the fun, be sure to bring your mountain bike, minibike, RC car, etc. What fun is rescuing a velodrome if you don’t get to run a few laps. Read More...

Tags: Possible Places To Mow

Hi Everyone, It’s Tom here. I did some urban exploring today. I had heard that one of Detroit’s parks used to have a Velodrome in it. A Velodrome is one of those banked tracks that they race bicycles on. Well, having a small-scale racetrack seems like it would be really fun. I decided to find out where it was located. Read More...

Tags: Possible Places To Mow

Our first group mow will be held on Saturday, August 28th at 1 PM. The Park will be Riverside Park in Detroit. Come Join Us. Read More...

Tags: Events

Welcome to MowerGang.com - The goal of this website is to motivate you to come join in the fun and help Detroit’s abandoned parks. Read More...

Tags: Mower Gang