Country Lore Readers tips to live by

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Readers’ Favorite Tools

I just had to write and tell you about a really great tool — especially for women. About a year ago, I came across a Makita jig saw, Model No. 4323K ($69). As a passionate do-it-yourselfer, I needed a small saw that could easily cut wood for my home projects. It only weighs a few pounds and is small enough for a woman’s hand, easy to control and well balanced.

Bobbe O’Brien
Northampton, Massachusetts

I enjoy natural peanut butter that has no unhealthful hydrogenated oils (trans fats). But it can be a messy job to stir the oil back into the peanut butter. My wife saw an ad and ordered a “peanut butter mixer.” When I looked at the device, a cap with a hole in it and a curved hook, I was not really impressed. But after the first use, I was amazed. The hook did the job after a few easy turns. The simple device is called Grandpa Witmer’s Old Fashioned Peanut Butter Mixer, and it costs $10. The address is: P-Butter Mixer, P.O. Box 444, Orrville, OH 44667 (www.witmerproducts.com).

Robert Hartfield
Lansdale, Pennsylvania

We have renamed our “rock rake,” purchased from Lee Valley Tools, the “Sequim Potato Shovel” and consider it an excellent multi-purpose tool. In our area of Sequim, Wash., on the Olympic Peninsula, there are many small rocks shaped like potatoes and known locally as Sequim potatoes. We purchased the rake ($40) to remove these rocks from our new 6,000-square-foot garden, but we have found it is also an excellent weeding tool, getting into tight areas around plants or shrubs, loosening the soil, and dislodging weeds — roots and all.

Greg and
Helen Starr
Carlsborg, Washington

In the best tools category, I would like to nominate the steel, adjustable rake. The rake’s width can be quickly adjusted to anywhere between 7 and 25 inches. This is the handiest rake for working around shrubs I’ve ever had, and it does fine on lawns, too. They are a great deal at $7 at Ace Hardware stores.

M.M. Fisher
Salt Lake City, Utah

Urban Tree Recycler

I am a small-scale sawyer who recycles urban forest trees that normally would end up as mulch or in landfills. More than 3 billion board feet of usable lumber from urban old-growth trees is wasted every year by municipalities. My goal is to keep as much as possible from filling up our landfill, and this year, I hope to process 14,000 board feet of this “throw away” wood. It’s beautiful; I make lumber, flooring and log furniture from the best of it, and the rest is made into firewood.