People in cars do a double-take.

“Why is that man vacuuming his grass?” they ask, not quite sure they saw what they did see as they zoomed around the big curve framing our rural farmhouse.

There I stand, an orange extension cord trailing from the outlet in the barn to the driveway, where sits my large wheeled Shop Vac.

“Vrrrm! Vrrrm!” says the Shop Vac as I wave its four-inch collection hose back and forth across the grass. I love this perennial rite of spring, as I have written before. To me, it is on a par with the arrival of robins.

“Slurp! Slurp!” says the nozzle. Unseen by motorists, small chunks of limestone get gobbled up into the Shop Vac’s bushel-like collection basket.

The limestone came from our driveway during this past winter. Some of it was deposited along the sides of the driveway by me, using another gnarly man toy, our snow blower. Other stones were swept to the sides or shoved across the road by helpful neighbor Chris Neil, who zoomed up our way on his plow-equipped ATV to keep the driveway open for chicken/dog/cat feeders from our family while we sojourned in Florida.

A decade and more ago, I hand-raked those stones back into the driveway each spring, tediously swinging the rake back and forth, muttering and grumbling as many stones simply flipped straight up and settled back into the grass instead of obediently sliding sideways at the stroke of the rake.

Raking stones is only slightly less ache-producing than the archetypal prison pastime of swinging sledgehammers to break large rocks into smaller rocks, then into stones.

So is shoveling the snow that coats the 200 feet of our driveway and garage pad that we use in winter.

Eventually, my aging shoulders and back rebelled.

“We refuse!” they screamed, sending their shooting pains through my torso.

I surrendered.

Actually, I mechanized.

Our current snow blower is my fourth such machine. It began with a single stage Montgomery Ward machine inherited from my father-in-law when age and arthritis ended his use for it. Then followed an orange used Gilson. It succumbed to a seized engine rod. An Ariens, big and bulky but indisputably gnarly, enlarged my biceps while I horsed it around. It did move snow, and doggie doo-doo, and small sticks, and just about anything in its path. Alas, it rusted.

Today’s version is a Troy-Bilt with electric start. I muttered and struggled with manual pull-cord starters time and again on the older machines. This one needs the electric start only for the first few ignitions each winter. From then on, its newer fuel injection responds with just one or two pulls on the rope, probably because it lives in fear of being electroshocked to life.

At any rate, some stones fly up or are pushed out along with the snow even though I have the skids set a half-inch above driveway level.

Come spring, those stones need to be returned to the driveway, or else I must spend money and time shoveling new limestone into the low spots to avoid mud and puddles.

Out comes the Shop Vac. I bought it two decades ago when I still lived in DuBois, in a house prone to basement flooding. It slurps icky, muddy water. I brought it to our hilltop farm because, well, because I still had it. Initially, I consigned it to storage in our barn.

Then Dennis “Woody” Woodrow, a former printer here, alerted me to using the vacuum cleaner. “Just point it,” he said. “Simple! No pulling with a rake.”

Thwip! Thworp! Tha-rat-a-tat-a-tat!

The small stones, about the size of a fingertip, pop up nicely.

When the collection basket is about half-full (100 pounds or so), I remove the top, roll the collection bin to the desired low spot, tip it and deposit the stones back into the driveway.

Stone-vacuuming, I have found, isn’t a lot faster than stone-raking or stone-sweeping. But it is infinitely easier, if one doesn’t mind the “What is that fool doing now?” stares from passing motorists.

I long ago got used to those stares. Anyone who tries to train grown dogs to herd free-range chickens away from young garden plants by running with the dogs and whooping at the chickens has already endured “fool-doing” stares.

Like tree pruning, lawn-rolling and other springtime tasks, grass-sweeping is also limited in time span by the grass itself. Vacuuming works well when the stones lie on top of the grass blades, or even nestled just below their tips. Once the grass has grown to mow-it-twice height, it takes the tines of a rake to dig the embedded stones out. Better then to just let them lie, I think.

I did hitch our lawn sweeper behind the ATV once, and try to sweep the stones into its collection hopper. I got too much lawn detritus and too few stones.

I have not tried a dethatcher, primarily because I do not own one.

But I do own a Shop Vac.

Thwip! Thworp! Tha-rat-a-tat-a-tat!

This is gnarly, manly, funly fun.

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Denny Bonavita is a former editor at newspapers in DuBois and Warren. He lives near Brookville. Email: denny2319@windstream.net