Prickly, infection-causing pinecones

I’m a big fan of collecting as few garden tools as possible. Less to store, clean and sharpen. I’m often amused at the gotta-have-it gardening items flooding my email inbox.

Take the butt-shaped rain barrel or my personal favorite — and by favorite I mean it made me laugh so hard coffee went up my nose – the coneivore. It’s a little grabber on the end of a stick that snatches pinecones. The price: $34.95. Here’s the chatter from the press release I received:

“It’s a product that takes the pain out of pinecone pick-up – as well as many other fallen fruits and nuts from trees. Until now there has been no easy way to pickup pinecones, but the CONEIVORE makes quick work without the typical bending and reaching. The lightweight-yet-durable CONEIVORE is a 36-inch handled tube that users simply plunge over the top of a pinecone snatching it off the ground and into the tube. The handy CONEIVORE allows the user to pick up pinecones without bending over or raking them into piles. It also prevents sharp pinecone barbs from pricking fingers and causing infections.”

Hmmm. I was under the impression an easy and free way of picking up pinecones and other objects was already invented. I call it the hand. The demonstration video on the Coneivore Web site will make you giggle. The marketing guy at CONEIVORE should get a pay raise for effort.