Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!

It's that time of year again. The temperatures are beginning to rise. Daylight is coming earlier and staying later. Birds are busy building nests around my downspouts.

But there is no more mistakable sign of Spring that the roar of gas engines, that permeate the neighbourhood.

And I'm not taking about lawn mowers. I'm talking about snow blowers.

That's right, snow blowers.

As anyone can tell you, it's not a great idea to store gas powered tools with the gas still in them.

And so the passage into Spring is announced (in my neighborhood, anyway) with a chorus of idling snow blowers, burning off the remaining gas.

I'm becoming a little more environmentally conscious as I get a little older. I never struck me as environmentally responsible running the gas tanks dry of all my yard tools, before putting them away. I have enough guilt using gas powered equipment in the first place. But running gas tanks dry is adding insult to (environmental) injury.

And so, with my new found treehugger conscience (and with gas approaching $4 a gallon), this year I decided to try something different.

No, I'm not going to leave the gas in the tank. That would be engine suicide.

This year I invested in a fluid pump. For a few bucks, FleetFarm provided me with a way to transfer my snow blower gas and avoid adding to the engine choir each Spring.

Too bad it took a city boy thirty years to figure out what every farmer already knows.

Why aren't these things on sale each Spring and Fall? It makes great environmental sense and trust me, there are a LOT of people (at least on my block) who don't know they exist!