Look at my new toy! It’s a tractor! It’s a sprinkler! It moves on it’s own accord — follows the hose — all the way around my house!

I’d never seen one of these until I moved up here and I did really think they were just a goofy gimmick, but this spring my neighbor across the street had his turned on, and when I took the time to watch it, I saw that it seemed to be pretty efficient. It’s low to the ground, so you don’t lose as much water to evaporation as with the back-and-forth sprinkler — and the fact that it creeps around the yard was appealing.

My yard is long and narrow, and while I’m trying to get rid of lawn bit by bit, I do want the lawn I have to actually be green — and after the construction last summer, which coincided exactly with our three-week-spell of 100-degree heat, well the yard is hammered. And I’m bad at watering. Either I forget, or I don’t leave the sprinkler on long enough because I think I’m being profligate with water. Subsequently, nothing ever gets a good soak.

The genius of the tractor sprinkler is that because it creeps along at it’s own slow speed, it’s like having an automatic timer (it even has this clever little ramp that turns it off when it gets to it’s destination). And in the brochure, it assures me that at slow speed, with the arms set at the 30 foot wide setting, it delivers 3/4 inch of water. I now know how much I’m watering — which is a big leap forward.

Although at sixty-nine dollars, the sprinkler tractor is expensive — it’s still cheaper than a sprinkler system — and if it means I don’t have to drag hoses all over my yard and set up sprinklers and reset them — well, maybe I’ll use it, and hence, restore my once-lovely yard to its former glory.

Oh tractor! My Tractor!