Why I Oughta...

I was in the Menards garden center recently and came across this rack that had four mailbox posts laying on it that had my gears turning a little bit.  Turning about what?  Well, that would be #11 on my 2021 to-do list for the season :   "Figure out SMALL tool storage - like pruners, saws, gloves, hand shovels, hose washers, other smalls." Could a mailbox post and a large, metal mailbox be the solve? I've danced around various tool storage ideas and have not settled on something that I'm in love with in terms of location, size, type, utility for gardening tool storage.  But, a mailbox solves A LOT of what I'm facing:  it is weatherproof, it closes and some of the larger ones can hold a lot of things like saws, shovels, gloves, even wire and automower supplies.  I currently keep everything in the garage, but that means that when I need them, I have to out front, grab them, then come back and do the work.   This would put my most-essential tool...

Over the years, I've done a few [Christmas Haul] posts that show off some of the things that people have gifted me for the yard and garage and shop.  This year, my first "haul" post (despite not being labeled that in the title) was this heated bird bath post from my mother-in-law.  Today, is another gift, but from my Sister-in-Law:  this rake called " The Groundskeeper II ". I came across it on someone in the lawn care community YouTube channel (wish I could remember who it was?  But, just search [Groundskeeper II rake] on YT and you'll find plenty of review posts). What is it? It is a rake.  Yep.  A rake.  But, it is a thatch rake.  And it is unique in design.  Here (below) is the rake laying in the ground in our yard.  You can see that I pulled up a little dead grass in the photo, too.   The Groundskeeper II has a couple of stickers on the handle that talk up the value prop of the tool: 1.  Easy o...

As part of my [ garden diary ], I've been working to keep annual logs of growth on some of the trees and shrubs including my tree height inventory.  Here is the link to the 2019 tree height inventory post .   And here's the one for 2018 .  The reason I bring this up is that earlier this month, as part of doing a mid-Winter yard inventory, I posted about some Winter damage on our Flowering Cherry Tree in the backyard .  In that post , I lamented that my measurement(s) for some of the trees is becoming inaccurate because of their heights getting too tall to get a tape measure on properly.   Welp...thanks to the miracles of e-commerce shopping, I'm now the proud owner of this Digital Caliper Measurement Tool that you can see below.  This one is just $8.99 , so it isn't the most expensive or sophisticated caliper tool, but I'm thinking it will get the job done. It is pretty easy to use and came with a couple of backup batteries. As I men...

As I've mentioned in a few different posts in the past month or so, I've been increasingly drawn into bonsai videos on YouTube.  Thanks to their recommendation algorithm, I've been wandering into a bonsai rabbit hole and have, I think, come to the conclusion that I should try my hand at some form of bonsai.  So, on my recent trip to Tokyo, I decided to seek out some bonsai in person.  I came across this post on Bonsai Empire that recommended this small shop called Morimae Bonsai in Ginza that was just a few blocks away from my hotel.  That story mentioned that the store was small and recommended a trip upstairs.  I wandered over there and found the place and I went in.  It *was* small and had one person working in the place behind a counter.  The Bonsai Empire piece mentioned an upstairs, but I didn't notice any stairs, so I was stuck just looking around the little shop.  They had about a half dozen trees in the store and some tools.  ...