Get a good sack and get to totin’
While the vegetable garden is my primary area of yard-interest, the bulk of the remaining yard is un-veggied space that requires attention and a certain amount of pampering. Fortunately, along with laundry, this is a chore that Beth does not consider a chore. In fact, she loves yard work. She’d love it more if she didn’t have to hike the equivalent of four flights of stairs up and down our hillside lot, but you play the cards you’re dealt, people.
Beth’s green thumb-related interests give me lots of opportunities to give practical gifts. (Contrary to years of talk-show and advice column recommendations, we do enjoy the appliance, tool, or chore-helper as gift. A washing machine is bigger jackpot than a car here in the SFBay and don’t you think otherwise. But never rule out diamonds.) So anyway, I saw this collapsible bucket thing and though I didn’t really see much value to the collapsing concept, the fabric and frame construction intrigued me because I thought it would be a lighter way to lug loads up and down the yard and it’s big enough to carry about 3 trips worth of stuff at once. I mean, does anyone want the bucket to account for half the weight of whatever she needs to carry?
So this turned out to be a huge jackpot. Beth uses it for everything from debris to plants to mulch to trash. It’s lightweight and sturdy. It multi-tasks. I’m considering filling it with ice and beers for our next bbq.
We just put one of those out to pasture. It was a workhorse at our house for three years. We left it out in the sun and rain, the kids did sack races with it, the dog raced it around the yard in his mouth like a live squirrel. Finally the canvas on the bottom completely rotted and the wire stuck out in the opposite direction. Now it was going to become an eyeball remover so we said goodbye. We will buy three more this weekend- not that we have that much yard, we just have a lot of “help” from the little helpers.
I used to work for a company that made these, albeit at another division. The collapsible part was so you could store a bunch hung from a hook on your garage or shed wall and not take up much storage room. The same division also made those things that you hang over a bucket that have little pockets for your various tools. Handy!
Yeah, I loved mine too. One day I put it out at the curb filled with the trash & the trash guys threw the whole thing in the truck. Never saw it again……..