Ethan and I went out to rake up a bit of thatch in the back yard. I raked it into piles, and he used a little rake to scoop it into the wheelbarrow. We weren’t very productive, because I always had to rake the thatch onto his rake first. Then Ethan got the idea to put the rake down and just pick up clumps with his mitten-clad hands.
This new approach worked great. Ethan picked up at about the same pace as I raked, saving me a few minutes of scooping into the wheelbarrow by the time we were done.