Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Don't choke on it

First wheelbarrow I've seen with a choking hazard warning!

From the Current Catalog, Colorado Springs, in the giftwrap accessories category:




Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Kirby and Keith

Our woodpile, 2016. Kirby Dodd with my plastic yard cart (two wheels, no steel but the axle, I think), and Keith Dodd with his steel and wooden-handled wheelbarrow.


I never noticed until I uploaded this that they're both from the same company, "TruTemper." The wheelbarrow, we've had for at least 15 years. We've replaced the tire (maybe the whole wheel). The yard cart is only a couple of years old. We've worn out two others, maybe different brands.

We have three little ramps in the yard, for the wheelbarrows. When I take the garden cart on them, I teip it over to one wheel. Maybe someday I'll bring photos of the ramps.

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Mention of wheel mount, in passing, 1874

Looking for a description I once saw of how to clad a wooden wheel in iron, I found this, in a book about automotive manufacturing in The Hub, Volume 15, page 49, published in New York in 1874. In discussing the attachment of wheels, they mention bearings on either side of the wheel, "as is the case with a common wheelbarrow."


Clicking this should get you to the book facsimile.

Friday, April 15, 2016

Crushed in Australia

Bob Collier, of Canberra, wrote:
My old wheelbarrow after it was crushed by the tail end of a branch that dropped from a huge gum tree we had in our front garden at the time; during the night, hours after I'd finished work for the day fortunately (the tree was subsequently removed).




Kentwell Tudor Wheelbarrows

Last year I put one photo, but today I noticed there were two wholly different contraptions!

So here is Adam Daniel and commentary with the wheelbarrow that has a deep container, and below is the one with a flat surface. Not sure, then if it's still technically a barrow. Still, nice details. Photos by Adam's mom, Julie.


Both have iron-clad wheels.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Conan O'Brien, Buddhist Monastery

Conan O'Brien shoveling snow into a wheelbarrow, at a Buddhist monastery in Korea.



Click the photo to go to the video from which it was lifted.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Bush Fire Victim

Photo and notes from Annie Regan, in Australia:

This is what was left of our wheelbarrow (it had a green plastic tub) after the 2009 Black Saturday bush fires. http://www.blacksaturdaybushfires.com.au

I had moved the wheelbarrow out to the front of our property to fill up with leaf litter from under a huge gum tree, as part of our fire preparation. I'd done a few loads in the week leading up to the fires, and had left it there to do some more when I got a chance. It was sitting there when the fire went through (me removing more leaf litter wouldn't have made any difference, nothing could have stopped the fire at this stage). Our house is about 10m behind me when I took this photo - the house was untouched but the ground all around on either side was burnt like this. We had an oak tree to the south, and the fire approached from that direction. The oak tree was shrivelled and dry on the southern side, the shed next to the tree burnt down, and the fire split and went either side of the tree (and our house) and then met again in the paddock to the north. So we were extremely lucky (we weren't home, we'd evacuated a few hours earlier).

Annie Regan

Friday, April 1, 2016

Korean Litter

Before the dynasty of dictators... article with many photos, DailyMail.com, March 2013.

The photos are late 19th, early 20th century. I've shown the difference between a Chinese wheelbarrow and a European—with different origins, one replacing a beast of burden, and one with a wheel replacing the other person carring the other end of a barrow.

Below is something more like the Chinese barrow, and also like a litter with two bearers.