A Clothespin Trebuchet

My morning patrol along the fence line revealed a brilliant piece of forgotten engineering—a weathered wooden spring clothespin lying half-buried in dry pine needles. Naturally, leaving it idle was off the table. I clamped both hands around the birch jaws, dragged it over to a sturdy, flat slate stone, and used an abandoned metal washer to prop the rear pinchers upright at a crisp forty-five-degree angle. For a test payload, I grabbed a tiny, dried red pyracantha berry. I balanced it right on the grooved wooden tip, braced my feet, and gave the spring lever a sharp downward stomp with my heel. Thwack! The berry sailed in a flawless high arc, cleanly clearing the weed patch.