Shop notes

The no-bending doctrine

Count the bends. A modest yard with one healthy dog produces four or five pickups a day — every one of them, with a bag or a short claw, is a full fold at the waist. That's over fifteen hundred deep bends a year assigned to the least rewarding chore you own, and your spine keeps the ledger even if you don't.

Our answer is thirty-six inches of handle, minimum. At that length the geometry changes completely: you stand upright, the rake does the reaching, and the tray meets the rake at ground level while your back stays out of the transaction entirely. It's the same reason nobody sweeps a floor with a six-inch broom.

The people who feel it first are the ones we hear from most — bad backs, new knees, tall owners tired of folding in half, and anyone whose yard round had quietly become the reason cleanup waited until Saturday. Put the job on a long handle and it stops being postponed.

One design note that matters: our handles assemble with push-pins, not twist-locks. Twist-lock handles unscrew a quarter-turn with every raking motion until they wobble; pins don't negotiate. The handle you hang up tonight is the same length and stiffness tomorrow, and every day after.