WOLF Garten

I don't often buy myself new things. I'm cheap, can easily talk myself out of needing/wanting something (which is why my hair looks very similar to any member of a 70s Southern rock band--really, need to cut soon), and pride myself on finding what I need used, not new. However, it's that time of year where the weeds are as big as my seedlings. Using my big weeder on a pole doesn't work at this stage of the growing stage. I end up tearing up weeds and plants alike. Not good. And really, I hate weeding by hand. I've got a friend who LOVES weeding by hand. She finds it meditative and soothing and will often go to a friend's house who has a smallish farm to just go in a field to weed. I've offered her my little slice of earth to meditate in, but she's never made it over. It could be that between my 3 kids and her 2 kids (who are friends as well), it'd be like meditating on a busy playground.
At any rate, I decided to gift myself a new Wolf Garten weeding and cultivating tool. It's meant to be used on a stick (sold separately, of course), but I find I like it better without, so that I can do the fine work of squeezing between the wee seedlings without inadvertently tearing out everything.
Wolf Garten makes dreamy, well made, solid steel gardening tools that work really, really well. My neighbor had bought a similar WG weeder a few years ago and graciously shared it with me for a few summers. She'd just hang it on the fence that divides our yard, saying, "Use it whenever you want. Just hang it back on the fence when you're done!" For the past 6 weeks or so I've been waiting for her to hang it on the fence like she does every spring. I finally broke down to ask her about it and she said she couldn't find it. So after holding out a few more weeks, I finally broke down and bought my own.
And just as expected, it is amazing. It does what I need it to do. My husband, who gets exasperated by my frugality and innate tendency to "make do", couldn't believe I didn't order the interchangeable pole to go with it. But like I  said, I need to be close to the ground to see what I'm doing. It's like weeding by hand, without all that tedious, one by one work.

It also came with a huge catalog from Gemplers.com. It's full of all sorts of stuff, like heinous pesticides, bilingual street signs, work boots, rain gear, fox urine, scary plastic owls....even poisonous pellets to drop down groundhog holes!! I just might need to order some of those. We'll see if we get our annual groundhog invasion. I've come a long way from my previous vegetarian self. Raising chickens and growing food has opened my eyes to the pests of gardening/farming. Everything is still organic out back, but I'm not averse to killing an animal that eats a 1/3 of my garden in one night. Maybe Wolf Garten sells small rodent sniper rifles...