Collecting made easy

The leaves disappear quickly at Bob Clidero’s Haliburton Lake cottage, but when it comes time to clean them up, the help disappears even faster. “I needed a one-man leaf operation,” says Clidero with a laugh, “since family members tend to be a bit scarce during these work periods in the spring and fall.”

If the job were ever to get done, Clidero reasoned, he’d need an easily emptied, one-person cart that would hold as many as five wheelbarrow loads in a single pass. When neighbours tossed out a few sheets of plywood and an old golf -handcart, the plan, and the leaf cart, began to take shape.

Inspired by the wheeled bins he’d seen janitors use at his kids’ schools, Clidero built the box with a similar shape in mind: one end slopes in at a 15° angle. The handle is made out of a bent piece of conduit. “Combined with the ten inches that the handle extends out, that angled end ensures that the cart doesn’t bump my heels when I’m pulling it.” Clidero culled two plastic wheels from the golf handcart, which make for easy rolling, and added an old caster on the front end. Leaves are loaded into the top; to facilitate easy unloading, Clidero fashioned a sliding door on the cart’s rear end, allowing him to push out the load with a couple of sweeps.

“I’ve got some help now,” says Clidero, referring to his new lady friend, “but this thing was a huge help through the years I did it
all on my own.”

-Pat Lynch

 

 

 

Originally published in the March 2007 issue of Cottage Life magazine.

Copyright © 2007 by Cottage Life. All rights reserved. Reproduction of any article, photograph, or artwork, for other than personal use, in whole or in part, without the written permission of the publisher is strictly forbidden.