In which tools are shown, including all the Implements of Destruction

There have been a couple of questions and comments about the tools we are using to build and/or destroy stuff at the farm. Arlo Guthrie described his collection of work tools as "shovels and rakes and Implements of Destruction" ; Jim and I clearly take our work tools a few steps beyond that.

I've never worn out a pair of gloves before!


These are orchard tools, which we've used for years as trail-clearing tools. The "pirate tape" is on all our trail tools--an easy way to make sure that our tools find their way back to our truck..and the tape also makes it easier at the end of the day to locate a green tool when you've tossed it into a bunch of green bushes.

The extendible-arm loppers have a lot of miles on them, because they hang comfortably on my horse's breast collar. Same with the "sweet little saw", which has exactly the right amount of curvature to bite through vine maple branches when the person using the saw is on a tall horse! They work fine from the ground, in the orchard as well.

These tools are used for creating, rebuilding, and removing fences. The grey T-Post Pounder (also show below, in position on a t-post) slips over the top of the post. It's heavy, so the user lifts it up with those handles, and then lets it drop--the inertia and the weight of the pounder does most of the work. On really rocky ground, you can provide some "downward" muscle, but it's not needed on most of our pasture, where the dirt is pretty cooperative.

The yellow-handled thing is a bolt-cutter, that tool beloved by burglers and thieves everywhere. It's wonderously useful for cutting barbed wire!

Next to the bolt-cutters is a tool called "Those Things That Look Like Pliars That You Use to Cut Wire." Excellent for chickenwire.

Also in this picture: a measuring wheel (for getting fenceposts, trees, and whatever else moved into correct distances, if not into a straight line), a hammer, and a staple gun.



Now we come to the real Implements of Destruction:
a crow bar, a hand-auger, rubber sledge hammer, and post-hole digger.


Last, but not least, the trail tools:

garden shovel,
fire shovel,
Pulaski (my favorite trail tool--note the pirate tape on the handle!)
pick axe,
and McLeod. These don't travel very well attached to a saddle, so we usually transport these for trail work on a truck or quad.

How luxurious it seems to be able to carry them from the shop to the worksite just by walking across the yard!