Simplicity?
A brief reflection on my chipper / shredder flings
As some of you know, I did a seriously dumb thing last weekend. My MTD chipper /shredder of 25+ years gave up the ghost when I forgot to check the oil. Duh me. Well, I can't live without a chipper / shredder, so I immediately searched far and wide for a used one (I'm a used kind of guy -- can't remember the last piece of major equipment that I bought new — my last new car was a ‘91 Chevy Cavalier Coupe).
I didn't have to search very far, and most definitely not wide. Whatever "wide" means in the context of an online search… anyway, a nice guy up in the northern limits of my fair county — areas that my city-bred father would warmly refer to as "the sticks" — was selling a gently used Simplicity 5/14 for a very fair price. So I jumped on it.
As an aside, I didn't have time to eat anything that morning, so I stopped at the McDonalds in Plumsteadville to pick up something industrial and quick on the way. Full disclosure, I hadn't eaten McDonald's food in 12 years, and the effect it might have on my now gall bladder-less intestinal substructure was a source of some concern. And I wasn't sure if I'd turn into a newt or something equally inconvenient. But I have to say, the food wasn't bad and the coffee was surprisingly drinkable. I do wish I had stuck with the classic Egg McMuffin rather than the bacon & egg bagel, for reasons that would take too long to explain, but that have to do with the relative chances of grease dripping on your pants while driving one-handed around windy country roads. FYI.
Anyway, the transaction was smooth, as was the pleasant conversation with the seller, a tall, friendly chap whose face betrayed years of practical experience, and whose landscaping business and piles of sacred, aging machinery made me even more jealous of folks who do real things for a living, rather than type if/then statements on a screen all day. But I digress again.
So, here's the thing: I've only owned one chipper/shredder in my life -- the aforementioned 6.5 HP MTD that I consigned to an early demise last weekend. My one true love. The only chipper I had ever given my heart to. Etc. etc.
Frankly, I had never heard of Simplicity chippers. It sounds like some cheapo off-brand that they'd sell in hidden corners of Wal*Mart for a year before quietly disappearing into the infinite void of cheap no-name, unsupported equipment from Genovia. Was I giving my heart to some cheap tart chipper looking to use me for a quick romp through the leaves and then disappear forever? Was I rebounding too hard and too soon from my tragic loss of only days prior? I wondered.
But, darn, this thing looked practical. I mean, just look at it. This is pure chipper/shredder erotica:
I loved my old MTD. I really did. But geez, she was an “interesting” shape… Things sticking out in weird, inconvenient directions... Inflatable tires that, predictably, needed a lot of inflating as she put some miles on the old odometer... That dark decade after I accidentally put too much oil in her, during which she moped around and sputtered blue-gray smoke in my face and needed some therapy. But we moved past that together, our relationship being just that strong… The cracking hoses in her later years, not to mention the disgusting air filter whose foam jacket was disintegrating into oily, filthy crumbs... The weird ritual needed to get her started (we don’t speak of such things in mixed company)... The need to balance her on blocks so she wouldn’t run away just as things were getting interesting, and the lift under her chute needed to get the angle right... And then, of course, when all was said and done, the frustration of stuffing her weird protrusions back in a shed.
None of that mattered. She was mine. And we had built so many beautiful compost piles together. And, poof, now it was all gone.
In my depleted emotional state, I got a load of this Simplicity unit, and I was torn. What a shape! You’re telling me that someone designed a chipper/shredder with a true vertical shredder chute??? With a handle in a place that makes sense? And a compact little chipper area that gives you just what you need without breaking the storage bank when you’re done? And her own balancing leg? And perfectly balanced to roll around my expansive tract of land? Oh, sure, she was only 5 HP, not 6.5. And that exit port seemed awfully tiny. Was this little floozy really gonna do the job?
I was both heartbroken and smitten. And that’s not a good combination for rational decisions. But I am here to tell you, with God as my witness, that not all good decisions are rational decisions, and not all rational decisions are good decisions. So I went with my heart and took this provocative, shapely little number home.
So it turns out that Simplicity makes pretty good equipment, and you actually can get parts for their chipper / shredders. Oh, I suppose I could have held out for the 8/14, which has a more powerful engine. But my little 5/14 is in great shape, looks and runs like a youngin’ despite her years, disposes of lawn waste just as fast as my beloved MTD with the bigger engine, is easy to move around the yard, and fits in the shed like she was designed for the space. She’s no Wal*Mart floozy. She’s a keeper.
For more reflections about gardening and the broader life lessons it bestows on us, feel free to check out my online book, Life Lessons of a Backyard Gardener, which I am publishing here, one chapter at a time.