It's All in Having the Right Kind of Tools

The problem, of course, with transforming the backyard of friends into your version of a farm is that you become hyper-sensitive about how it looks. It would be one thing if my seedlings were sprouting out on some random property off the highway, but given the fact that my 40-foot trenches were dug within sight of their sun porch means that they have become defacto agricultural landscaping. So yes, we mow the grass paths between the trenches, but that still leaves the edges. It is, I trust, a short term problem, as the flourishing plants will presumably and eventually spill out over the ragged edges. But at this point the naked shagginess requires some detailed attention.

We have tried the weed whacker - that gas-powered, twine-whirring whiz. But, alas, it's macro-trim, coupled with our unpracticed wielding has already decapitated nascent flowers and peppers. The world is already short on food; it can't afford such horticultural abortions. With a great deal more precision, we exchanged the weed-whacker for old-fashioned squeeze trimmers, but with 10 trenches that represents a lot of squeezing.  Our hands can only dream of being that strong -- and our knees that padded!  What is an aspiring farmer to do?  How to keep my hosts happy and my body functioning:  those are the questions.

The answer almost surely involves, as my late uncle routinely asserted, the right tools.  In this case that means a rechargeable handheld grass trimmer, and a manual grass trimmer with an extension handle that enables trimming without stooping or dropping to our knees.


Why is it that no local store seems to carry either one?

Never fear:  the internet is a wonderful thing.  The latter will arrive on Friday; the former on Tuesday.

Life is good!

Hopefully the trimming will be as well.