Today's Yard Equipment Makes Easy Work Out of Yard Maintenance

Yard equipment; ah, the feeling of making your first money from mowing the neighbor's lawn. In the fifties, mowing the lawn was good for a dollar or two for sweating in the hot sun pushing the mower over the grass. Once motorized lawn mowers became popular it was easier and quicker to cut the grass and you could even charge more for it. But you didn't really evolve until you made it to your first riding mower. The riding mower was the best. It made a job seem more like fun. Kids begged to mow the lawn. Even mothers didn't seem to mind the lawn work.

Lawn equipment in the early days wasn't exciting. Your father went to Sears, Penny's, and Montgomery Ward's and bought whatever was sitting on the show floor. As the years went by, home improvement businesses like Lowe's and Home Depot put many different brands and types out there for us to choose from. Owning a really nice riding mower became another step in "keeping up with the Jones". Neighbors compared the John Deer to the Kubota. A rivalry over which mower makes the closest cut was sure to arise.

There are so many different types of electric tools for yard work that naming them is hard. There is a device that runs down the sidewalk and cuts the grass that is real close or a long item that looks like the nose on a swordfish that cuts the tops off shrubbery. There are smaller electric tools that will shape your shrubbery into beautiful and interesting topiary forms. There are small machines that look like a bulldozer that can be used in a yard to dig and to rearrange the landscape. Specialized tools are used to install and hook up an in ground sprinkler system.

You can't forget about the lowly weed eater. Where would we be without this piece of equipment that made it easier to get rid of the weeds in our flower garden or next to the sidewalk, house and driveway? Sometimes it has even been necessary to mow the entire yard with the weed eater when the battery is dead on the mower or something else goes wrong with it.

Chainsaws make it easier for us to cut down trees or to cut up trees that have fallen down. Trimmers work on the shrubs and trees that line the driveway. Leaf blowers can be used to blow the leaves up into a pile or to suck them up into a bag to discard them. There are machines that are used to chip up branches and small trees. The wood chips can then be used as mulch for the garden.

Of course, if you plan to plant a garden you will need a tiller to turn over the ground and make your rows for planting. There are also smaller tiller type machines that can be used to remove the weeds that come up between the rows.

By Herb Leibacher