My mom used to stride around with a timer on her belt. It beeped when she needed to shape bread dough into loaves which she’d raise, bake, and take hot to our resort’s guests—a daily recurring chore. She’d even wear her beeper on the lake, wheeling the boat to shore before her timer went off. 

Cooking for our family, Mom’s arsenal included her bread machine, stand mixer or at the very least, hand mixer. She microwaved as much as possible. When covered with a bowl and sprinkled with water, reheated caramel rolls never tasted so good, moist or gooey except fresh from her oven. We nuked everything from omelettes to corn on the cob wrapped in layers of Saran which melted and melded under the radiation.

On the front side of our guests’ shower building, a laundry room housed multiple dryers, washing machines, an old-time wringer washer which would pull your arm and wring you if you weren’t watching, and a mangle to press shirts, sheets or fingers. Drawn to the mangle’s heat, mosquitoes swarmed and bit, causing scorched and burned fabric and hands when you lost it and assaulted the little vampires back. 

Push and riding lawnmowers, a weed eater and a hand trimmer kept our grounds manicured. Hoes, trowels, a rake and a tiller tamed our weedy gardens. A three-wheeler, station wagon and electric golf cart in succession hauled totes of sundry supplies for cleaning our cabins and campground. Mom worked hard. Her gadgets saved time and energy—usually. We had paint sprayers but also used plain old paintbrushes because automation could only go so far.

Seeking a simpler, more healthful lifestyle, my husband and I vowed not to purchase anything electric or motorized when we started our own home on the old homestead as newlyweds. A rusty rotary manual mower hacked our grass and gave us a workout at the same time, though not as much as the scythe. My husband looked like the Grim Reaper swinging that thing. I feared he’d slice off or into his legs. For long minutes I’d watch him out the window while I kneaded our bread, which I didn’t attempt to make often since it never turned out great.

Mom to the rescue! She bought me a mustard-yellow Kitchen Aid stand mixer like hers. It took up precious counter space in our little farmhouse’s kitchen, clashed with the colors and collected dust. As a mother-daughter gift, she gave me a Swiss Army knife, loaded with multiple blades, a saw, a file and a toothpick but lacking the spoon and fork I actually wanted. 

My husband was the first to break our no-electric ban. A door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman arrived one day years before our children did. I put him off, but he returned for the head of the house’s decision. Confident that my husband would send the salesman packing for good, I listened to the pitch. Simultaneously the salesman sucked the air out of our pillows and upholstered couch’s cushions, shrinking them shockingly in a plastic bag to demonstrate the Filter Queen’s power to remove dust and dust mites, sources of one of my worst allergies. In horror, I witnessed my husband striking a deal for the vacuum: hundreds in cash plus a free stay at the resort, a total value of almost a thousand dollars. This was close to four decades ago and left us virtually broke for months. 

I bought a dishwasher the moment we could afford one. When I became a mother myself, I splurged on a commercial-grade electric juicer. After the next addition to our family, Mom presented our youngest and wildest child with a rechargeable handheld grass clipper. Its jagged moving blades looked just right for chopping off little digits. 

Mom gifted us all with cell phones, her old tiller, an indoor tabletop electric grill and a variety of smaller labor-saving devices, tag-teaming with my mother-in-law to shower us with such gadgets as a table-mounted, hand-operated apple peeler that’s still around here somewhere. I think.

The first time I became interested in appliances besides my dishwasher, juicer, washer and dryer was at a friend’s house. One minute she suggested we make cookies for our little ones, the next she was dumping ingredients into her stand mixer’s bowl. In the time it would’ve taken me to crank my eggbeater, we were chomping hot, tender cookies. Suddenly my Kitchen Aid never looked better. When our manual grain mill broke, we bought a Kitchen Aid attachment that wrecked our mixer’s motor, so Kitchen Aid gave us another. From then on, we just purchased organic flour which we stored in our freezer. The children were elated to be relieved of chores and fascinated with our new purchases until the electric can opener broke. “Now what will we do?” our oldest wailed.

We still use our spendy vacuum cleaner, especially for foiling annual Asian beetle infestations. Although we ripped out our carpeting and haven’t collapsed any cushions since we encased or replaced our upholstered furniture with leather or vinyl, years of use have made our Filter Queen a worthwhile investment. My juicer still sees plenty of seasonal apple and carrot action nearly thirty years after I bought it. I’m also trimming grass with the same clipper my mother gave our child, who has all her fingers as an adult, although I still don’t let her use that clipper. 

These days we process our produce with a dehydrator, heat our food in an air fryer, make our bread, cookies and almost everything else with the indispensable aid of gadgets. They mow our grass, till our gardens and plow our driveway. When we came down with covid, I bought a robot vacuum. It’s worth the savings in sneezes alone.

Day and night I hear the hum of our many mechanized menials working inside and out. Last year at a garage sale, I found a robot mop. One day I hope to own a dusting drone.

Mom would be so proud.