Pluggers by Rick McKee for November 12, 2023

Tool be, or not tool be (down there somewhere): that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to use a blower

To clean the grounds of outrageous nature,

Or to take strong arms to rake against a sea of leaves,

And by opposing find them? To cry: to weep;

No more will I lose you we weep to say in the end…

Unbeleavesable isn’t it.

Pluggers are irresponsible?

Better to find it that way instead of finding it while cutting the grass ;-)

Somewhere in the woods right next to my patio is the top half of a suet feeder a racoon dismantled after I forgot to put it inside one night.

Right now I’m looking for my pruning saw. Previously, I almost bundled it up with some twigs and branches to be set out for collection.

I can say I have never left/lost a tool in the yard. I did once loose a screw driver when putting up drywall. Figure it was behind the panel laying in the sill plate.

I don’t lose tools. At the end of a job if I see an empty place in my toolbox, for example a spot where a 10mm socket goes, I look for it right away. My S.O. leaves tools all over, so I got her her own toolbox and tools. She’s the only woman in the neighborhood with a Snap On toolbox.

suck them up in the blowers vacuum setting shred them in tiny bits then mix them with your lawn seed stock and spread them on your freshly turned soil

Our prior house, my dogs dug up a half dozen tools from under the deck. This place, I found half of a truck bumper while planting a plum tree.

If you lost it in the summer in Florida, you might as well throw it away because it would be so rusted.

For horsefolks, it’s finding the 100 dollar custom, padded, drill tapped, forged horse shoe out in a field of all things living that the horse lost ten minutes after the farrier left. Most appreciated when it happens the day before an event.

Box of soggy bottle rockets.

Better than finding it with the mower.

Would have found it with the mower first.

“And, hey, isn’t that my old leaf blower?”

I don’t rake or blow leaves; I mulch them in place with my mower. So far, I haven’t mulched any lost tools. So far…

I’ve been looking for that camper trailer all summer.

Husband finally gave in and agreed that he (we) could no longer deal with cutting the grass when we forgot it about the second year of Covid – having also forgotten about the first year and never bothered to catch up. (Our grass in our backyard and we did not go back there as had no reason to do so. When we needed something from the garage we had to go back there to get into same and saw the grass about 2 feet tall -same the next year with it even taller.)

We hired the fellow who was dealing with one of our neighbor’s grass – and even better, after over a decade of trying to find someone to clear our snow and being told “commercial only – no houses” the fellow would clear our snow also!!

We had reached the point where it took both us to mow the grass as he would get exhausted and I would have to take over (and I had to hold the electric cord, when he bought an electric mower, so he did not run over it.)

Moving several feet of snow was also a problem even with a snow blower.