Giant Leaf Bucket Makes Fall Cleanup Easy

Giant Leaf Bucket Makes Fall Cleanup Easy FARM HOME Miscellaneous “We are dealing with aging gardeners here ” laughs Le Roy Neeper explaining why he built a giant leaf bucket to attach to his tractor loader He and his wife Shirley take pride in the 4-acre “mini arboretum” with manicured lawn that they have created over the past 38 years But with the many varieties of trees and shrubs they’ve planted come huge piles of leaves to clean up every fall Neeper blows leaves into a pile with his zero-turn riding mower He used to pitch the leaves on a trailer with a fork to haul them away Last year he built the big leaf bucket for about $100 out of 10-ga metal and angle iron with load binders to secure it to his tractor’s bucket The base is 6 by 6-ft with 3-ft tall sides Three light angle irons support the bottom and slide under the bucket where they are tightened with load binders Neeper parks the tractor with the leaf bucket near the pile and pushes the leaves on with his mower “Last year I carried out 25 packed loads of leaves ” By spring the 10-ft tall pile of leaves shrinks to about 4 ft on its way to becoming compost Neeper wasn’t sure if the bucket saves time – it still took 40 hours to remove leaves from his Medina N Y lawn – but he knows it saved his back “I’m quite elated about the way this works ” Neeper says Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Le Roy Neeper 12421 Ridge Rd Medina N Y 14103 ph 585 798-3019; N2skiing@rochester rr com

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