Tools You Can Use

I have been doing some of the necessary Spring labor around the place, such as straightening up my blackberry supports and turning the 'tater bed.  A few tools come in handy, and it is hard to think of a good substitute for them.

Fencing pliers are a actually a multitool of sorts, incorporating a hammer face, a staple-puller, wire-cutter, and pliers.  For some reason, we always referred to fencing pliers as "granny pliers".  I think, though, it started out as "Grandma's pliers" because they had belonged to my grandmother.  I have more than one pair of fencing pliers because I like to keep one set with my tool belt that I use when I'm working on a fence.  Another set, I use for everything.  The hammer face makes a pretty decent little light hammer.  I wouldn't want to frame a house with it, but, for most everyday applications, it works well.

If you have ever seen a wire that has been spliced or connected to a post where the bight end of the wire is wrapped in a neat, tight spiral, it was probably done with fencing pliers.  No. 12 smooth wire will slide right through the top gap in the pliers' head and almost wrap itself in coils. 

That brings me to another tool that I don't have pictured:  wire.  You can buy rolls of 12-gauge or 9-gauge wire at most farm supply stores.  This stuff has endless uses.  I am guessing that the newer stuff comes from China or some place because it is a little more susceptible to rust and corrosion than what I remember from my sadly misspent youth.  Still, it is relatively cheap and more durable than duct tape.  Most of the tool hooks in my pegboard are made from an S-shaped piece of #12.  That most famous of improvisational devices, baling wire, is probably about 14-gauge — I don't have any to examine at the moment — a little lighter than #12.  You can manipulate 12-gauge with your bare hands up to a point.  You can make it look a lot neater with a pair of pliers, though.  If you are going to do much with #9, you'll likely need a little leverage.  Number 9 is thicker and stronger, but not, in my experience, as generally and universally useful.  I keep a roll around, but it lasts a lot longer than the #12 roll. 

I use this wire as part of the bracing for corner posts on a fence line.  After putting in the horizontal or diagonal component between the main upright post and the upright brace,  I wrap two or three or four strands angling from the top of the brace to the bottom of the main, using a couple of staples on each post for guides.  After I tie it together, I put a stick, a piece of broken steel post, or a piece of rebar about a foot-and-a-half long inside the loop near the bottom and crank it down tight.  This helps hold the horizontal (or diagonal) brace in place as well as keeping the upright brace from giving to the tension in the fence over time.  It really turns the braces and the main post into a single unit of superior strength. 

Another thing I use a lot is a small sledge.  Mine is blacksmith hammer, for no particular reason except it is what I have.  A drilling hammer of sufficient weight would work just as well, or a sledge for that matter.  I used to use a little sledge I had picked up — probably at a garage sale.  Whoever had put in the handle had done a really ugly job on it, and I always meant to get a new handle and fix it right, but I never did.  It's still in the barn in original condition, more or less.  It's too heavy to swing accurately and safely with one hand for a long time -- after a while I tend to get wobbly.  The drilling hammer I have is a little too light for some applications.  The blacksmith's hammer is just right.  I don't know what the head weight is, more that two pounds, I think, maybe three.  I use a star-drill for breaking through the rocks around here, and the smith works great for that.  It will also do a passable job of driving a steel post unless the ground is particularly hard and/or rocky.  It will drive a cold chisel, beat something stubborn into place, or beat it out of place, and that pointed end will shore'nuff knock welding slag like it's supposed to.

Pictured:  Sore's Hammer.


Next is the come-a-long.  What are these things actually called?  Is it a winch?  Wench?  Whatever.  If you don't have one, find one and buy it.  You may not have any idea what you will use it for at the moment, but take the time to figure out how the little catches work, how to release it and all that.  At some point, you will be doing something that is all but impossible, and it will suddenly occur to you that you have a come-a-long, and your life will improve 100%.  Trust me.

You thought I was joking about wench?  Don't you see the "come hither" look?

I have a couple or three picks.  Pictured is a baby pick.  I bought this, and my wife said, "What are you going to do with that thing?"  I use it all the time around her flower beds and borders.  She loves these decorative concrete borders and stepping stones and stuff like that.  Between seasonal freezing and thawing and her reckless zero-turn mowing, things are always getting knocked loose, knocked down, and knocked out of place.  The little pick works great for getting things back in order.  She wants bulbs planted, I use the pick.  She wants cabbage or tomato plants put out in the garden, I use the pick.  I use it to knock rocks out of the tiller tines.  I use it as a light pry bar.  Turned sideways, it will drive on the lid to a paint can or beat the top of a bucket of transmission fluid back into place.  It gives me a little extra reach.  It will roll a rock or log over without getting my fingers in the way of a lurking copperhead.  I hook it through the mesh at the bottom of a couple of cattle panels to make them easier to carry.  It's just handy for all kinds of things.  Not everybody will find the baby pick as helpful as I do; however, everyone should have a good, full-size pick with a heavy, forged head.  You don't use them as much, but nothing else works quite as well when you do need one.

Take your pick.

A spading fork is another tool of limited but essential use.  If you need to turn ground by hand, you probably need a spading fork.  They are also handy for digging potatoes, hence the hillbilly designation of "'tater fork".  What the spading fork lacks relative to the fineness and reach of that more traditional implement of the peasantry, the pitchfork, it makes up for in brute strength.  A D-handled spading fork can get through hard ground like nothing short of a spring-tooth new-ground plow.  They are wicked and they will break your back.

The pain radiates from the picture.  You know you want one.

Protect your eyes.  Too many years of working in the sun and around CRTs probably caused an early onset of cataracts for me.  I've had them fixed so I'm bionic, but I need these baby blues.  I don't think I would ever get Eli's trick of echolocation down.

Your future is bright.  Wear shades.