What did you do in the garden today?

[chickengr]

I cut about 50 leaves off my giant fig trees so I can dry them for tea

did you drink that tea? I saw on youtube fig leaves tea is supposed to be good for health but as I heard many people got poisened using internet recipes I didn't dare to try.

 

[Minanora]

Is it illegal to buy a gas engine mower from out of state and haul it back across the line?

I don't think so. I may pick one up when we go to lake Tahoe in February.

It's hard to believe that some of us live in a world where gas mowers could be contraband.

Dude we can't even buy residential natural gas or propane appliances in some cities... And all new construction is not allowed to pipe up for gas, even if there's a meter.

Let's take heat, lose a bunch of that energy to make electricity with it, lose some more of that energy moving it, then turn it into heat again.

Are you a market gardener?

No. Just a cuckoo lady.

I plant what we eat. Plus, this time, enough to share/gift to friends and family. Plus what I need to seed next year's crop. We eat a lot of garlic, it's easy to grow, and it's expensive at the shops.

Today I finally caved in and cleaned the chicken coop. Except the walls. I also took out the nesting pads and just put saw dust in the boxes. Nobody is laying and I'm tired of cleaning poop off of the mats.

Mustard greens are sprouting already. Pretty surprised.

 

[gtaus]

That's always been the fly in the ointment for me. You buy cordless tools and are then committed to needing to make a future purchase of the batteries FOR THAT DESIGN just to find out THAT DESIGN is no longer available. Now you’re left with perfectly good yet useless tools. What options are you left with? Only one……new tools. Big advantage of corded is that until the tool itself fails you’ll always have it available….assuming you pay your electric bill.

Yep, that happened to me a lot back in the day. I still have a number of old (hardly used) tools that work fine - if I could only get a battery for them! That was a real issue for me as well. Back then, if I had to spend good money on a tool, I chose electric as well because I knew I would still be able to plug it in 40 years from now.

If you still have those old battery tools, you might be able to get upgraded Lithium batteries with a new charger to replace your old dead Ni-Cad batteries.

Recently, I was cleaning out a shed and found a nice tool case with a set of old 3.6v Ni-Cad Versapak tools. That must be around 25 years old! Anyways, I felt bad that kit was put into storage and forgotten because of Ni-Cad batteries going dead and no longer sold locally.

For example, I found this on Amazon...

I am considering buying that upgrade kit for the Versapak tools because there were a couple of specialty tools in that kit that I have never replaced. You might find newer compatible Li-Ion batteries for our old tools as well. If that has value to you.

My brother has Ryobi because they said the batteries would always fit. So far they have.

I switched over to Ryobi ~20 years ago because they promised to keep their 18v One+ battery line format forever. That had real value to me back then because I got burned from other brands switching to a new format battery every 2 years making their old tools worthless. It was the best decision I ever made for myself.

Although the 18v One+ Ni-Cad batteries that came with my original Ryobi tool kit died about 17 years ago, I am happy to report that all the newer Ryobi 18v One+ Li-Ion batteries work great in my original tool kit. In fact, all those old tools run better, and much longer, with the newer Li-Ion chemistry.

Ryobi is always running some kind of a deal where if you buy a new tool, you get free batteries. Or, if you buy a battery pack, you get a free tool. I have never paid full retail price for a Ryobi battery. I have just purchased new tools that I wanted and most of them came with batteries in the kit. Here is one special Home Depot has going on right now...

@gtaus would agree to that statement.

Thanks for the shout out. You know I like to talk about the value of Ryobi tools for us DIYer's. Again, I'm still using my 20-year-old Ryobi tools with the new Ryobi batteries I have purchased in various kits over the years. FWIW, I think my oldest Li-Ion batteries are coming up on about 15 years old. They are all still working, although with reduced run times. Even my oldest batteries run long enough for me to complete most of my DIY projects without swapping in a fresh battery. No complaints.

I add a small label on the bottom of each battery with the end of the warranty date. That way, I can tell how old each battery is by looking at the label. In my ~20 years of buying Ryobi tools, I have only had one battery fail within the warranty period, and Ryobi sent me out a new replacement battery no problem (I keep my receipts). You get a 3-year warranty on the Ryobi batteries, whereas the Amazon Ryobi battery knock-offs from fly-by-night sellers might only have the Amazon 30-day return period.

I tried some Amazon Ryobi knock-off specials, and they were not good. I returned them to Amazone within the 30 days and got my money back. Good thing, too, because you can't find that seller on Amazon anymore. They advertised a 1-year warranty on their batteries, but I think the seller was gone in about 6 months. That's the game. Quality may vary from seller to seller, but my off-brand batteries were a failure.

 

[gtaus]

Maybe I should clarify. I do not want a battery operated mower. Lithium or otherwise. It's way too hot here in the early summer when I mow the most. It's really hard on batteries and they're too expensive to punish like that.

I can understand that. However, I used to buy a new push mower about every 2-3 years because the carb would gunk up and the repair shop cost was more expensive that the mower was worth. I switched over to a battery push mower about 15 years ago and it works like new today. I have saved lots of money using my small battery push mower.

Depending on the tool line, you might not be spending as much money on batteries as you think. I am in the Ryobi line, and my push mower uses the same batteries as my hand tools. So, I don't even factor in the cost of batteries for mowing.

I live in northern Minnesota. I have never had a problem with a battery overheating in my push mower. On hot days, I usually need more breaks than my batteries. I don't work as fast, long, or hard as in my younger days. I guess that's probably good for the batteries, giving them a rest every once in a while. And I only use the push mower in spaces where I cannot mow with my riding mowers.

I do have much larger gas riding mowers. I am not ready to replace my gas riding mowers with battery riding mowers. I have 3 acres of land, and a battery riding mower would cost me too much for that coverage.

I know the battery push mowers have improved a lot since I bought my push mower ~15 years ago. But I don't expect to replace my battery mower until/if it dies. But I will certainly get another battery push mower and not a gas push mower. It just works out better for me.

I do agree that in some tool lines, those batteries can be very expensive. If you only used those batteries in your mower, that might not be the best use of your money. But I use my batteries in all my other tools as well.

 

[gtaus]

It's hard to believe that some of us live in a world where gas mowers could be contraband.

I live out in the country, on lake property. We don't have to worry about gas restricted lawn tools. However, we have an unwritten neighborly agreement that nobody mows the lawn (with a gas mower) before 10 am. Well, just about any gas operated machine that early in the morning makes too much noise for the people coming out to the lake cabins who just want to relax and sleep in later. I'm OK with that.

I recently bought last year's Ryobi 40v battery operated backpack leaf blower on clearance. It is so quiet compared to my smaller gas leaf blowers. You could run that new blower any time of the day and not get the neighbors upset.

I have seen on YouTube where professional lawn care guys are being forced to buy battery leaf blowers because in some neighborhoods, you cannot run gas leaf blowers at any time in the day!

I wonder if that goes for mowing the lawn as well with gas mowers?
I have a small battery operated Ryobi push mower. That is super quiet as well. You can't hear anything other than the blade cutting the grass.

I bought that Ryobi backpack leaf blower kit because I wanted the two 40v 6Ah batteries for my Ryobi 40v chainsaws. I wanted a longer runtime than my 4ah battery. I should be more than good for any chainsaw job I might have to do around the yard. Again, the 40v chainsaw is super quiet compared to my gas Stihl chainsaw. The only time I use the gas chainsaw is if I have a really big project. I think the last time I used the gas chainsaw was about 4 years ago. For my needs, the battery lawn tools just work out better.

I don't know if gas equipment will ever be banned where I live, but according to my local repair shop, they sell more battery equipment for the homeowners than gas. They still carry the larger gas equipment for the professionals who make their living with those mowers, leaf blowers, chainsaws, etc... So, gas is not contraband, but most homeowners are choosing battery over gas these days.