Patent Application
20170099787
The disclosure relates to mulch spreading devices and more particularly pertains to a new mulch spreading device for assisting a person in collecting mulch from a mulch pile and distributing the mulch over an area requiring such.
An embodiment of the disclosure meets the needs presented above by generally comprising a housing having a rear wall and a perimeter wall extending forward of the rear wall to define an interior of the housing. The perimeter wall has a forward edge defining an access opening into the interior. The perimeter wall includes an upper wall, a lower wall, a first lateral wall and a second lateral wall. The interior has a volume equal to at least 1.0 cubic gallon. A plurality of teeth is attached to the lower wall and extends forward from the forward edge. Each of the teeth is arced upwardly from the lower wall. An upper handle is attached to the upper wall adjacent to the forward edge. A rear handle is attached to the rear wall adjacent to the upper wall. The rear wall has a support formed therein adjacent to the lower wall and extending outwardly away from the rear wall. The teeth and the forward edge are extendable into mulch to fill the interior with mulch.
There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, the more important features of the disclosure in order that the detailed description thereof that follows may be better understood, and in order that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated. There are additional features of the disclosure that will be described hereinafter and which will form the subject matter of the claims appended hereto.
The objects of the disclosure, along with the various features of novelty which characterize the disclosure, are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this disclosure.
The disclosure will be better understood and objects other than those set forth above will become apparent when consideration is given to the following detailed description thereof. Such description makes reference to the annexed drawings wherein:
With reference now to the drawings, and in particular to
As best illustrated in
A plurality of teeth 38 is attached to the lower wall 24 and extends forward from the forward edge 20. Each of the teeth 38 is arced upwardly from the lower wall 24 as can best be seen in
An upper handle 46 is attached to the upper wall 22 adjacent to the forward edge 20. The upper handle 46 includes a pair of legs 48 attached to the upper wall 22 and a center grip 50 is attached to and extends between the legs 48 such that an opening 52 is defined between the center grip 50 and the upper wall 22. Each of the first 24 and second 26 lateral walls has one of the legs 48 positioned adjacent thereto. A rear handle 54 is attached to the rear wall 14 adjacent to the upper wall 22. The rear handle 54 includes a pair of arms 56 attached to the rear wall 14 and a middle grip 58 is attached to and extends between the arms 56 such an aperture 60 is defined between the middle grip 58 and the rear wall 14. Each of the first 26 and second 28 lateral walls has one of the arms 56 positioned adjacent thereto. The support 32 extends farther from the rear wall 14 than the rear handle 54.
In use, the teeth 38 and the forward edge 20 are extendable into mulch to fill the interior 18 with mulch. The user may use the teeth 38 to break up the mulch to better loosen it as it is moved into the housing 12. The hole 30 in the rear wall 14, or support 32 therein, prevents air pockets from inhibiting the housing 12 from being completely filled with the mulch. The upper 46 and rear 58 handles are each gripped and the two handles 46, 58 allow a user to pivot the housing 12 within the mulch pile to cause the teeth 38 to lift up so that gravity causes the mulch to fall into the housing 12 while the support 32 may be abutted against the user's knees to act as a pivot or leverage point. Once filled, the user still grips both the upper 46 and rear 54 handles and shakes the housing 12 back and forth over an area requiring mulch so that the mulch is distributed evenly over the area.
With respect to the above description then, it is to be realized that the optimum dimensional relationships for the parts of an embodiment enabled by the disclosure, to include variations in size, materials, shape, form, function and manner of operation, assembly and use, are deemed readily apparent and obvious to one skilled in the art, and all equivalent relationships to those illustrated in the drawings and described in the specification are intended to be encompassed by an embodiment of the disclosure.
Therefore, the foregoing is considered as illustrative only of the principles of the disclosure. Further, since numerous modifications and changes will readily occur to those skilled in the art, it is not desired to limit the disclosure to the exact construction and operation shown and described, and accordingly, all suitable modifications and equivalents may be resorted to, falling within the scope of the disclosure. In this patent document, the word “comprising” is used in its non-limiting sense to mean that items following the word are included, but items not specifically mentioned are not excluded. A reference to an element by the indefinite article “a” does not exclude the possibility that more than one of the element is present, unless the context clearly requires that there be only one of the elements.
