The Cart That Saved My Back This Fall

Every November the willow oak at the back of my lot drops what feels like half its leaves in a two week stretch, and for thirty eight years on this half acre I've had one system for it. Rake into piles, load the wheelbarrow, walk it down the slope to the compost corner by the boxwoods, dump, and go back for more. This past fall, at 71, I noticed my back had started talking to me the way it does after a long day bent over a rake, that dull, low ache that used to show up by evening and now showed up by ten in the morning.

Delia noticed too, the way she notices most things I try not to mention, and by the following weekend there was a Gorilla Carts dump cart sitting in the driveway, still in its box, with a note taped to it that said it was for my back, not for my birthday. I hadn't asked for it. I'm the kind of man who tends to push through a chore rather than buy his way out of it, but I opened the box anyway, mostly so she wouldn't have to keep watching me struggle through the rest of that year's leaves.

Putting the Gorilla Carts cart together took about twenty minutes at the workbench in the shed, no more trouble than most of what's come through that pegboard wall over the years. The bed is poly, four cubic feet, and it sits low enough on two wheels that loading it doesn't mean lifting anything shoulder high. I wheeled it out to the base of the willow oak that same afternoon and started raking straight into it instead of into a pile first, which turned out to save a whole extra step I'd never thought to question in thirty eight falls of doing it the other way.

The real test was the slope. Pulling a loaded wheelbarrow down that grade toward the boxwoods was never too bad. It was pushing an empty one back up, over and over, that wore on me by the end of a long raking day. The Gorilla Carts cart pulls behind me instead of pushing out in front, and the two wheels track straighter on the uneven ground than a wheelbarrow's single wheel ever did. I could load it heavier too, more leaves per trip, which meant fewer trips total, and fewer trips turned out to be most of the answer to a back that had been talking to me by ten in the morning.

I hadn't realized how many of those trips down the slope I could just cut out entirely, until I had a cart that let me.

Sawyer and June were out that Saturday too, nine and six and both convinced raking leaves is more fun than it actually is. Sawyer took over pulling the Gorilla Carts cart between piles once he figured out the handle folds down to about his height, and June rode along inside it more than she actually raked, which was fine by me. Having something sturdy enough to hold a load of wet leaves and steady enough that a nine year old could pull it without tipping it over meant I spent that Saturday supervising instead of doing every bit of the hauling myself, which hadn't happened in years.

By the time the oak had dropped its last leaves in early December, the Gorilla Carts cart had made maybe a dozen trips down to the compost corner, and the tilt dump bed turned out to be the detail I use the most now. No forking leaves out by hand, no tipping a wheelbarrow sideways and hoping it doesn't dump on my boots. I pull a release, the bed tips, the leaves go where I aimed them, and I'm walking back up the slope for the next load instead of standing there shaking a stuck pile loose. It folds down flat enough that it hangs on the pegboard wall next to the rakes now, out of the way until I need it again.

I wrote up the longer version of what two seasons with the Gorilla Carts cart have looked like, mulch and firewood included, not just the fall leaves. And if you'd rather have the short list, I put together ten reasons a dump cart like this one earns its keep around a half acre property like mine.

Delia asked me in December whether the cart had been worth the trouble of putting together, and I told her the truth, that I hadn't thought about my back once during the last few loads of leaves that fall, and that was new. I'd gotten so used to that low ache showing up by mid-morning that I'd stopped noticing it as anything but part of the season. Having a fall where it just didn't show up the same way was worth more to me than I let on standing there in the driveway, and the Gorilla Carts cart folded up against the shed wall was most of the reason why.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you asked me straight out whether a dump cart is worth it, I'd tell you what I told Delia. I'd say I spent too many years assuming a sore back by mid-morning was just what raking under a big oak costs a man my age, instead of admitting the wheelbarrow was doing me no favors on a slope like mine. You don't need to grit your teeth through every leaf season the way I did for thirty-eight of them. You need a Gorilla Carts cart that hauls more per trip, pulls instead of pushes, and dumps itself once you get there. That's the whole case, plain as I can put it, no dressing it up beyond that.