Showing posts with label tool envy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tool envy. Show all posts

Friday, June 10, 2022

Tool Envy

 

“Work smarter, not harder,” they said, and boy, were they right.

Recently, I decided I needed 10 yards of cedar chips for landscaping and, before I had moved more than a teaspoon or two, I decided I needed 10 MORE yards. The nice people at Packwood Prospecting were cleaning up their materials yard and brought me 12 yards for the same price. Excellent! Now I have 22 yards of cedar chips to move into multiple locations and a teaspoon to do it with. I’m sure everything will proceed smoothly.

Last time I had 10 yards of landscaping materials delivered it was 10 yards of “bark dust” for top dressing my flower beds. I worked out a very clever method of stabbing the top of the bark pile with my four-pronged pitchfork and “cracking” it into the scoop shovel I had thoughtfully positioned below. Stab! Crack! Scoop! Dump it in the cute little tractor wagon--with a dump bed! -- I pull behind my lawnmower. Works like a charm...

...For bark dust, not so much for cedar chips. I was reduced to hand scooping the chips into a five-gallon bucket. It was not as much fun as it sounds. 22 yards of cedar chips suddenly seems like a LOT.
Fortunately, my friend Robin stopped by for a visit and suggested I borrow his 10-tine mulch fork—a tool made specifically for picking up loose materials. 


10 tines! Not four! And ergonomic handle with a D end for easy gripping and enhanced leverage! And it comes in a sunny yellow color! I developed a huge case of tool envy and have been plotting ever since then on procuring one of those 10-tined beauties for myself.


And the mulch fork works really well with the “bark dust” I have left. Because yes, I ordered 22 yards of cedar chips before I had exhausted my pile of “dust.” And I still have most of a 10 yard pile of chips procured from the county a couple of seasons back when they were chipping up downed tree limps.

Clearly, I REALLY NEED A 10-tined mulch fork ...
WANT