“Susie Saucer and Ronnie Rocket” was a great kids book from 1950’s England.

Children who know the alphabet can be taught to read early by taping index card labels on the most common objects, such as “CHAIR”, “TABLE”, “FLOOR”, “RUG”, “WINDOW”, etc.  After a while, start transitioning to mixed upper & lower case eg. “Chair”.  Occasionally move one to be in the wrong place and see if they notice and fix it, prompting them if necessary.  Add cards with the names of colors and show them how to associate those with objects.  Many such extensions of the idea are possible.  Progress will be amazing.

If you have a rechargeable device such as a hand vacuum, power drill etc. that isn’t used often, the life of its battery pack can be significantly extended by charging it only occasionally.  Use a standard rotary light timer to energize the charger only one hour a day, for example.

Home drip aka irrigation lines often use so-called 1/2″ PVC tubing (Toro is one brand) connected directly to the water main via timer-driven solenoid valves.  The timer drives the valves to open and close on some schedule, typically watering for a few minutes daily on each one.  Town water pressure can be 35 psi.  This puts a lot of unnecessary stress on the tubing; it will flex along its seams every time pressure is applied and removed, and eventually burst.  Such drip lines will actually work fine at 6 psi.   Senninger makes suitable in-line regulators.  With these installed the tubing failure rates will drop radically.

When working on home drip lines, one very useful tool is a handheld lighter.  Heating a tubing connection makes it much easier to remove.

A mesquite tree that is weak at the roots and constantly falling over can usually be fixed by turning off its watering.

An excellent way to clean residential sink drains without removing the trap is via a nylon tie-wrap or zip-tie.   Get one about 12″ long and use cutting pliers to put sawtooth notches in the sides near the tapered end.  Poke this down the drain to drag up all the gunk.