Penny-wise...pound-foolish...

In our corner of the Pacific Northwest, it’s been a season that can truly be called summer! Oftentimes, our summer is a week long, and is over before we recognized it. Not this year! We’ve enjoyed summer weather day after day…and that means the ground is very dry, and my flowers and garden are in need of serious watering.

I’ve been very faithful about doing that…and then one day, this showed up in a box on our porch!

 

The Farmer had watched me drag around my plastic hose cart as much as he could stand, and purchased, put together, and enhanced with special features this new wonder. (During harvest, no less! That is love…)

I already had a hose cart that I had purchased myself. However, I have this…thing…about buying equipment for outdoor endeavors.

I don’t like to pay much for that stuff. My conviction was that I would spend no more than $40 on a hose cart, and if that meant the wheels didn’t turn very well, and the cart would drag along sometimes when I pulled out the hose, so be it. I’d rather pay $40 for a hose cart and drag it around, than pay $140 for one and not be able to buy an extra top and a few thrift store treasures.

The Farmer doesn’t get this…thing…that I have.

And watching me wrestle the hose cart (which to me is still better than wrestling 100ft of hose), was getting to him.

So now I have a hose cart with all the bells and whistles!

The wheels are perpendicular to the direction the reel turns: no more dragging cart.

The tires are big and bouncy and roll so easily on the grass.

The reel locks in position, and can be left unlocked as well.

The Farmer attached a little storage bin for my sprinklers and nozzles.

The Farmer permanently plumbed in a valve so that I can regulate the flow to the sprinkler with just a twist, or 1/8 of one. This is a quantum leap in quality over my previous cart, whose plastic fitting regularly shot out the side of the cart as the water flow began with its fits and starts. I always had to hold it in until the spitting was over, and hope that nothing happened while I was away from the cart.

And The Farmer didn’t plan this one, but it also serves as an exercise machine. Due to my lack of acumen on which direction is left-loosy or righty-tighty on said valve, and the length of the hose on said cart, I do quite a bit of walking back and forth before I get the water flow right.

It’s a gift that keeps on giving!

Watering is SO easy now…and I have to admit that those extra dollars have everything to do with it. Sure – you can buy a hose cart for $40, but now I see that, even though it’s quite a few dollars more, convenience isn’t a bad purchase either. Right now, it’s making me happy every day.

Sometimes this Dutch girl just needs to suck it up, and pay for the intangibles.