Monday, April 26, 2010

Picking Up Sweet Gum Balls



OUCH!!!! These things are quite the nuisance. When I was growing up, my grandmother's yard had a steep hill in front of it that my cousins and I thoroughly enjoyed rolling down.




Unless of course...the Sweet Gum Balls had fallen. Our knees would buckle when we stepped on them with our bare feet. And they certainly didn't feel good poking you in the back as you rolled down the hill. The density of these on a yard is nothing short of amazing. Grandma Marie's yard looked something like this on an average year.


Her husband cursed them under his breath as he raked and bagged and raked and bagged. I am pretty sure he ended up hiring workers to take care of them. And ultimately the tree was butchered and removed.

Fortunately, there is another option to chopping down your Sweet Gum tree. Bag-A-Nut makes picking up Sweet Gum Balls much easier. There is no need to rake, but rather you simply push the Bag-A-Nut along and empty the basket when you are done.


The green wheels all move independently picking up sweet gum balls and then ejecting them into the hopper. The picture here shows our Flip-Up version. You just pull the string and dump the Sweetgum Balls.


We also offer these in Removable Basket models where you can just lift out the basket and empty its contents into a garbage can or whatever receptacle you prefer.





For those of you who are unable to push a Bag-A-Nut, or if you have several Sweetgum trees spread out, you may find the Tag-A-Long model to be a better fit for you. Below is the 36 inch model but we make a 24 inch model too.





So, there is no excuse now, don't rake Sweet Gum Balls, PICK UP Sweet Gum Balls!!!
You can see these various sizes of this product on our website at:







What the heck is a Bag-A-Nut?

Some snicker at the title of our company, we know, we get it. We have a healthy sense of humor about it too. Likewise, the name can be a bit misleading...but it is our history and we value our roots. We cannot be separated from our beginnings, so to tell our story is the best way to portray what our products are all about.

In the 80's, James Dudley set out to hunt and ended up picking up pecans all day. (You can see a video of the whole story here http://www.baganut.com/about.asp).

Anyone with a pecan tree in their yard knows what this entails: getting on your hands and knees and picking up hundreds of nuts with your hands. The after effects: knee scrapes, sore backs, dirty hands, and paper bags full of pecans ready to be shelled.

"There has to be a better way!" said Grandpa Dudley. His keen invention skills and experience with injectable molding produced the Bag-A-Nut. The design has changed quite a bit over the years. The original machines had a spot to attach plastic bags as shown above. (By the way, this young man in the photos is now in his 20's).















Today, Bag-A-Nut is still owned and operated by the Dudley family. His Grandson Caleb Dudley is the CEO and he continues to improve on the Bag-A-Nut to suit all kinds of applications. Here is what our current pecan picker looks like.


You can see how the new models have a basket that can easily be removed for dumping your nuts into a barrel, or truck bed, or wherever you care to stockpile your nut harvest. These clever machines are lightweight and can be operated by almost anyone over the age of 7. We have some spry young 90-year olds who think these are a boon.

We have also adapted these to be used on a number of other objects:
Sweet Gum Balls (those pesky, spiky tree debris), Acorns, Hazelnuts (Filberts), Macadamian Nuts, Walnuts, Almonds, Chestnuts, Hickory Nuts, Beech Nuts, Butternuts, Coffee Beans, and Jojoba Beans...just to name a few.

We also have our Ammo-Up product line for pistol brass, shotgun shells, shotgun wads, and paintballs / Reballs. Check out our sites for more information.

www.baganut.com
www.ammoupusa.com