Hand tools
I use several hand tools for my weeding and mulching operations. They are easily misplaced in the high grass and surrounding weeds and not discovered until, accidentally, days later. It occurred to me that a cause was their lack of distinctiveness (blame the tools not the workman). Their handles are either natural wood color, yellow or, the logic for this beats me, green. So, easily camouflaged. The solution was a small pot of cherry red paint and now, with their distinctive coloring, they come easily to hand.
Pump timer
When I established my irrigation system I thought it would be neat to have an automated process with the pump starting and stopping at given times whether I was there or not. So I incorporated a digital timing system which produces a low volt output when switched on which was connected to a relay which switched on the 110 volt circuit to power the pump.
For the past year I have been manually starting the timer and mainly hand watering and the timer would switch off after the set period. The timer no longer works and I really don’t need a 4 station device when I am pumping only one line. Rather then buy another digital timer with surplus features which could fail, I decided to buy a simple mechanical timer like you see in some hotel bathrooms. Since it is a simple timing device it is unlikely to fail soon and its output is 110 volts so the circuitry is simplified. I bought a double gang box and wired it to a 3 prong outlet – and it works great. No longer do I have to press several buttons on the digital timer, I simply turn the timer handle to the desired time period and the pump starts up.
And here is the finished product
