This morning we rented a power rake from Home Depot (four hours, $40) and pushed it around the yard a bit.
The idea was to remove all the dead grass, so we can put down some seed & fertilizer and begin the rehabilitation of our grub-destroyed lawn. We had thought that the yard was recovering pretty well on its own, but apparently it wasn't: the power rake left behind huge patches of bare dirt. (Maybe I had the height setting wrong?)
The power rake was incredibly loud, but almost as easy to push as the self-propelled lawn mower: whenever I held down the "operator presence bar" - I suppose calling it a dead-man switch isn't politically correct any more - and spun up the whirling blades of death, it just about pulled itself along. All I really had to do was steer.
We raked up four yard-waste bags of dead grass, plus a few grubs. They're in the garage now, waiting for the free pickup next month.
(A cloudburst opened up less than ten minutes after we finished up & went inside. It lasted just long enough to wash off the sidewalks and dampen the soil. How convenient.)