A momentous this has happened!
Since 2002, a time long ago, when I was still a young thing, I have been hand raking about 3 acres of yard every spring (not counting the rest of the farm). As I dwell in North Idaho, the land of infinite pine needles and occasional windstorms, let's just say that my raking chops have been well-refined and my triceps are well-defined from my profession of spring and fall yard raker extraordinaire.
Not that I don't mind not have tricep-a-flaps, but dang people, I am getting old and can keep the triceps and shoulders defined without torturing my carcass by hand-raking every square inch of the old homestead. Honestly, I tend to like raking a bit, it's kinda like giving the land a bit of a trim in a way, everything looks so tidy and English country estate-like when one is done, but the amount of days for this Kat to get it done was formidable.
Then, the other day my hubs said, "That's it! We are getting that sweeper for you." Honestly, I didn't really hear him the first time because he is always yelling at the YouTube stream he has going on constantly of forging or Sasquatch videos, but he was talking to me, about getting me a yard sweeper that I pull behind my John Deere lawn mower.
"What sorcery are you speaking of?" I squawked? When he explained the magical deliciousness that is a yard sweeper, I about fell out of my chair. A ground driven apparatus that rakes up all of the lawn detritus without honing one's shoulders into a sexy sculptured tone? How could this be possible?
Well, Home Depot made it possible, and yesterday we drove to Ponderay and picked up my Sweeper McSweeperface of absolute adoredness! I was so excited that I bounced out of the store with my pickup slip like a chihuahua on DMT, my cat shoes barely touched the ground as I hopped over to Rufus (our truck) and we pulled over to the contractor loading area to get the box that would be my sweeper.
My husband, like all giant things, was amused at my glee. I swear he was actually even smiling, a state that he usually doesn't attain unless one of the children are miserable. "Do you think it will be hard to put together? Will I be able to use it today you think?" I prattled on like Tiny Tim before a pile of Dickens inspired presents and a plate of overcooked goose.
"Yes my little Conehead, you shall be sweeping up pine needles shortly." my giant Hawaiian chuckled.
Two hours and some grumbling at coneheaded engineers later we were home and my hubs had put together my sweeper. Guys, I don't know if it's come through yet, but I WAS EXCITED!
As we went out to put the sweeper together, my son and his buddies rolled in from their foray up to Schweitzer for some skiing and snowboarding. One of our friend's kid is a ski instructor up there and he has been after my son and our neighbor boy to go up for the day with him. All I know is that I had about ten seconds of belly laughter amusement as they all groaningly exited the truck they had returned in. One had taken a jump into a tree, my son had taken a header down the hillside, and the neighbor kid had busted his flintlocks on one run. Good times.
Anyway, they all gathered around like a mouth breather chorus to watch my hubs finish constructing the sweeper. I put one of them to work helping me rake while I waited cause I never really stop working, plus, I built them a fire to roast hot dogs on, so they had no excuse to whine. The hubs sent one of them to the shop for the air compressor to fill up my mower tires, and after a bit more conehead engineer epithets uttered, I was in business.
Let's just say that the sweeper works better than Elon's latest rocket. I spent over two hours sweeping my estate, in fact, I am going to head out there and sweep a bit right now, because my yard sweeper is the best things since robot sliced bread!
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's currently adorned in a lion's mane of pine needles iPhone.