I don’t often write about products in this blog. In fact, I don’t think I ever have — until now. What I want to tell you about is a product so simple (and potentially so useful) that it blew me away at the recent California Landscape Contractors Association Trade Show and Conference in LA.

The name of the product is the Bullet Mole. My first thought on hearing the name was that the product is something to kill moles. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Actually the Bullet Mole is an incredibly simple tool. That’s what I love about it; that and it gets the job done without a lot of expense and fuss.

The tool itself looks like a tiny warhead at the end of a metal shaft. This warhead doesn’t explode or anything like that, though, even though it can penetrate and shatter the hardest rock. Made of super tough metal, it makes neat, round openings for installing irrigation pipe and/or wires under sidewalks or driveways. No fuss. No muss.

Quite simply, you dig a small hole at one end of the sidewalk or driveway insert the Bullet Mole, pointy side in the direction of the sidewalk or driveway, than you whack the butt end of the metal shaft with a sledge hammer and it drives the “Mole” (irrigation pipe surrounding the shaft behind it) under the sidewalk or driveway. The force of the falling sledge hammer is enough to drive the “Mole” through clay, rock, just about any material.

Check out the “Mole” at http://bulletmole.com.

(For the record, this product mention was not solicited and was not the result of any freebies or promises by the “Mole” makers and marketers. I just thought it was cool.) — Ron Hall