Warm up before you do your yard work. Stretch those muscles. Your yard work may not seem challenging but plenty of people pull muscles while doing it.
Never handle pesticides and fertilizers without protective clothing.
Always wear shoes when you operate a mower, and avoid wearing loose clothing.
Never start your mowers indoors (garages, sheds, etc.), and when it’s time to refuel make sure the engine is off and cool. And of course never smoke when you are around gasoline.
Never leave your mower on while unattended.
Don’t use electrical mowers on wet grass. And if you use other tools and equipment to maintain your lawn, such as trimmers, lawn edgers, pruners and power saws here are a few more pointers:
-Read the instructions before operating the tools.
-Use proper eye protection.
-On cutting equipment, make sure you have blade guards in place.
-Don’t let tools get wet unless they specifically are immersible.
-Unplug all tools when not in use.
-Make sure the tool is in the “off” position before you turn it on.
Store gasoline-powered equipment away from anything that uses a pilot light.
Always wait for a saw blade to stop before pulling it away from what you are cutting to avoid kickback.
When pruning trees use caution around wires.
If you are doing hands-on weeding, make sure you can recognize poison oak, poison ivy and poison sumac so that you can avoid them.
—adapted from the West Milford Fire Prevention Web page
Hone your skills for work and family and you hone them for living life to the fullest
Copyright: vryanes/fd/lic.
