Yay!!!!  Our John Deere lawn tractor was returned today.  It is fixed and back in working condition.  That means that we were finally able to hook up our new Cyclone Rake and put it through its paces.  For those of you not familiar with last week’s road trip / quest to West Haven Connecticut, the Cyclone Rake is a leaf vacuum and leaf mulcher.  This machine attaches to the back of your  riding mower.  While it is not available through any local store or dealership, the Connecticut plant will ship anywhere.  http://www.cyclonerake.com  

The verdict?   Warren is really happy with it.  It took him approximately two hours to assemble and was somewhat tricky.  I understand some holes had to be drilled, so any future purchaser should be somewhat competent with tools and following written instructions.

During our first use of this machine, in 1.5 hours it had sucked up and mulched the equivalent of approximately 100 leaf bags. Nice eh?  We still have a lot more leaves to gather but at least we are now assured that it can be done without killing ourselves.

Warren has a lot of “Tim The Tool Man Taylor” in him.      On almost a daily basis I hear him say: “I should have built it bigger”.  That might be his only criticism on his new Cyclone Rake.  “I should have bought the more powerful model”.   I don’t think our little lawn tractor could manage the upgraded size.  Nevertheless, Warren is one happy guy.

Preparing to dump the load