Myron Kukla: Surviving yard and garden utensils

I’ve got a problem. A serious problem. I’m a yard and garden tool junkie.   

It’s a disgraceful and expensive habit, but I can’t help myself. 
Courtesy Myron Kukla Myron Kukla
It’s been months since I had my last garden tool fix.  I bought a titanium-bladed driveway and walk edger that can also sharpen knives. It sits in my garage waiting for the beautiful new spring grass to sprout along my drive so I can kill it with the edger.

Every week, I wait for mail bringing the latest garden and home improvement catalogs and flyers.  

Shaking with anticipation, I open the flyer and spot my first tool. It's a 30-inch, collapsible garden rake for $18.95 that I can add to my garden rake collection, which, by my estimate, is second to none.  

I’ve spent thousands and thousands of dollars on garden and yard tools over the years and I have nothing to show for it except a two-stall garage full of mowers, thatchers, rototillers, hedge trimmers, weed eaters, wagon carts, lawn rollers, grass catchers, yard vacuums, leaf blowers, wheelbarrows and, of course, my collection of yard rakes. I need all this stuff for the two hours of yard work I do each week. 

Need more gadgets

Even though I have enough gardening, planting, and mowing machinery to run a small Texas ranch, I am constantly on the search for better gadgets that will make my yard work easier. 

I go through the catalogs and flyers with a black marker, circling interesting items as I go. I find pruning shears, chain saws for small limbs, and for larger limbs, saws on telescoping poles with lever-action pruning blades. I add them to my list. You can never have enough sharp tree-trimming blades; that’s my motto.

My trees are tall, so I look for a 30-foot extension ladder to buy. It will be useful to hang the bird feeders I’m going to buy. I stop and think about this for a minute. A 30-foot ladder might be overkill since I won’t climb more than eight feet off the ground.  Luckily, they have a trampoline-style catch guard you can put around the ladder in case you fall. I add that to my list.   

I eye with envy the new one-ton log and branch chipper. Man, with that thing I could deforest my whole yard and most of the neighborhood.  But, I desist.  My half-ton log and branch chipper is still almost new and working fine. 

I’m getting to the end of the catalog, and there are only a few more items I will need. With zeal, I mark the 50-pound bags of pulverized lawn lime, peat moss, potting soil, turf starter, lawn seed, broadcast spreader, plastic edging, weed barriers, and garden bags.  

Oh, I should probably get myself a pair of gardening gloves. But maybe not. I have to draw the line somewhere. 

Myron J. Kukla is a Midwest writer and humorist and the author of several books, including “Guide to Surviving Life” and “Confessions of a Baby Boomer" and the newly released "Murder at Tulip Time." He is also a former Holland-based reporter for the Lakeshore Press and Grand Rapids Press. He and his family live in Holland, the tulip capital of the world.