Pruners Don't Wrinkle

  I broke my pruner yesterday.

Winter trimming in South Florida is about preparing for hurricanes.  
When the job of trimming the higher trees comes down to dragging visiting relatives in, then out come the pruners. The pruners aren't the relatives; they're the garden shears that lop off branches no wider than 2" thick. 

Regular oiling of the blades has probably kept my lopper (the larger of the garden shears) in operation for many years but all it took was one stubborn branch....dead as could be...but still wouldn't go into the woody graveyard.....so I hacked at it with my heavy lopper....

and the lopper blade shattered.  :(    

It was my oldest and best garden buddy....been with me through all the Hurricanes after Andrew. 

So looking up websites for a new one, little did I know the variety out there. 

My buddy was an Anvil variety. I don't know why they call it an anvil....it had no similarity in image. Maybe it was once upon a time hammered when the steel or iron was hot upon an anvil? 

There are mostly the anvil and bypass types. Again...I have a friend who just underwent Double ByPass surgery and I hope nothing like that lopper was used on him.


Here's a good link to lopper varieties:
http://www.orchardsedge.com/tools/all/loppers


also, Amazon has a few:


http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=loppers&x=18&y=14

enjoy the cool weather where you don't prune from oversweating.