Every single year that I have been a home owner I have made a trek to the local hardware store in search of the new sprinkler that is going to water all of my weird shaped sections of lawn without wasting a precious drop on the driveway, sidewalk, patio, or god forbid, the neighbor's yard. Every year I find a new sprinkler that I just know is going to allow me to precisely direct every drop of life-giving water onto a thirsty blade of grass and miss all non-grass areas. Every year I get a little closer, but every year ultimately end up in defeat.

Until now! I think I found just the sprinkler for me. I have walked past it several times before because I thought it looked cheap, plasticky, gimmicky, not something for the serious lawn waterer. But this year I was determined to find THE sprinkler. I picked it up and was surprised at the weight. Much heavier than I thought. I moved some of the controls around and they felt pretty solid. The little life time warranty logo said "Best for professional use." Yeah I know that is just puffery and they can say anything they want to sell a sprinkler, but I bought into it anyway.

The grassed area of our backyard is much longer than it is wide. What I have had to do so far is get a sprinkler with a small footprint and move it several times to get the entire backyard. That is a hassle and not very efficient.

The normal oscillating ones that go back and forth (I guess that's what oscillating means) get all of the grass, but too much of it goes over the fence and onto the patio.

The one I got tonight has 18 holes across the sweep bar, but the magic is that you can individually turn off and on three of the holes on each end of the bar. By doing this I get a very narrow swath from the remaining 2/3 of the holes, but by turning the water on full-power it shoots almost to each side of the yard. Perfect!

The sprinkler is the Melnor 4100 and I got it at The Home Depot for $20.