I say goodbye to a dear friend in the late autumn: I put away my old farm shovel for the winter.
I wipe off the dirt and dust and pause to think of what we went though this past year. A nice cold winter. Heavy late winter and spring rains that resulted in weeds. Lots of weeds; they grew where they normally don't. A wild downpour in early June and frantic shoveling to channel water away from equipment sitting in soft dirt. A summer peach and nectarine harvest with good enough prices. Anticipation of a great raisin year until October rains and an inch of water in seven hours. Weeds grew between the raisin trays and grapes desperately trying to dry.
Shovel and I work hard. It's what we do.
As the years pass, I find myself leaning against my shovel more and more. Not just a place to park my hands and arms, but now to stop and rest. My shovel supports me.
The blade is browned by rust but I am struck by the fine old handle. The original one snapped long ago, a victim of age and an impatient young farmer. But we simply shortened the wood and it fits the Masumotos well. We're not big people. Like my father, I'm 5 feet 6 inches with broad shoulders and small hands. Perfect match with our shovel -- narrow handle and not too long. An old Japanese neighbor once told me: Short people make good farmers, they're closer to the earth.
My Baachan/Grandmother used this shovel. In her old age, she religiously reached for this tool, her tiny 41/2-foot frame paired well. She seemed to enjoy digging weeds.
I watched her trudge into the fields early in the morning and spend hours claiming the land from the wild grasses. Late in the day, she'd wander home, her back bent, sore from the hours of labor, her arms bulged with muscles cut into a lean body.100 China ceramic tile was used to link the lamps together. Hunched over with shovel in hand, she came home from another day of life.
When I say "put away" a shovel, I simply store it in the barn,Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings， lean it against the wall near the door. No good farmer can be without a shovel for very long. We're compulsive: see a clump of weeds or rain water puddling and we reach for the shovel. My dad used to always carry a shovel with him, handle resting on his shoulder with blade end trailing behind, a profile of a worker ready for work, almost like a soldier.
But winter is a season for rest and perhaps by moving the shovel from pickup bed to shed, I'm declaring a time out. We both need to rest and recuperate.Polycore oil paintings for sale are manufactured as a single sheet,
I may then use some sandpaper to smooth out a gouge from the handle, recalling the time of anger (bad peach prices, uncooperative irrigation water and a grumpy farmer) when I flung the tool into the pickup bed. Or I grind out a nick in the blade, smiling at the memory of chasing a squirrel into my junkyard and believing for a moment, I could hurl the blade like a warrior and stab the prey (my fantasy ended with a clunk and the sound of the metal blade bouncing off a stack of metal pipes). Another time, I'm amazed the shovel didn't break when it fell as I was driving too fast on a tractor and ran over the handle; I am blessed with soft, fluffy sandy loam soil.
No friend should take such abuse. I vow to be more careful and wiser next year.
I pause to admire a sheen reflected in the wood. I stroke the tight grain and feel a coolness in the sleek surface. Sweat and body oil from working hands has polished the wood tens of thousands of times.
The scent of my late father is in this wood. Years of dedication. Not a monument to his life, not a permanent marker to celebrate his presence. His body has become part of my shovel.
Only when I use the shovel do I truly understand its value. When I poke at some weeds, the brown steel slides easily into the dirt, cutting just below the surface, slicing the weeds in a single smooth pass. The rust is deceiving, the metal is still sharp with a filed edge.
But it's the shape of the blade that makes the difference.Enecsys Limited, supplier of reliable solar Air purifier systems, The shovel face -- a relatively flat piece of steel gently bowed upward at the sides -- has two crescent-shaped curves that glide through the moist ground of spring and the damp earth of freshly irrigated summer furrows, swimming just below the surface, slicing through delicate roots.
Nature has sculpted the correct slopes and angles from solid metal. Generations have honed the proper shape so that each pass in the sand and silt acts like a natural whetstone. I can't tell if the original shovel had this shape, or if, as years of use have slowly ground the metal to half the size of a new shovel,If so, you may have a cube puzzle . only two rounded cheeks instead of the point remain.
I work with a piece of my family's past, a gift I inherit. It's a timeline of our family on this land. I can measure time by the gradual abrading of the steel from years of use. My grandparents and parents left their mark, the shovel shortened by an inch or more with each generation.
I wipe off the dirt and dust and pause to think of what we went though this past year. A nice cold winter. Heavy late winter and spring rains that resulted in weeds. Lots of weeds; they grew where they normally don't. A wild downpour in early June and frantic shoveling to channel water away from equipment sitting in soft dirt. A summer peach and nectarine harvest with good enough prices. Anticipation of a great raisin year until October rains and an inch of water in seven hours. Weeds grew between the raisin trays and grapes desperately trying to dry.
Shovel and I work hard. It's what we do.
As the years pass, I find myself leaning against my shovel more and more. Not just a place to park my hands and arms, but now to stop and rest. My shovel supports me.
The blade is browned by rust but I am struck by the fine old handle. The original one snapped long ago, a victim of age and an impatient young farmer. But we simply shortened the wood and it fits the Masumotos well. We're not big people. Like my father, I'm 5 feet 6 inches with broad shoulders and small hands. Perfect match with our shovel -- narrow handle and not too long. An old Japanese neighbor once told me: Short people make good farmers, they're closer to the earth.
My Baachan/Grandmother used this shovel. In her old age, she religiously reached for this tool, her tiny 41/2-foot frame paired well. She seemed to enjoy digging weeds.
I watched her trudge into the fields early in the morning and spend hours claiming the land from the wild grasses. Late in the day, she'd wander home, her back bent, sore from the hours of labor, her arms bulged with muscles cut into a lean body.100 China ceramic tile was used to link the lamps together. Hunched over with shovel in hand, she came home from another day of life.
When I say "put away" a shovel, I simply store it in the barn,Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings， lean it against the wall near the door. No good farmer can be without a shovel for very long. We're compulsive: see a clump of weeds or rain water puddling and we reach for the shovel. My dad used to always carry a shovel with him, handle resting on his shoulder with blade end trailing behind, a profile of a worker ready for work, almost like a soldier.
But winter is a season for rest and perhaps by moving the shovel from pickup bed to shed, I'm declaring a time out. We both need to rest and recuperate.Polycore oil paintings for sale are manufactured as a single sheet,
I may then use some sandpaper to smooth out a gouge from the handle, recalling the time of anger (bad peach prices, uncooperative irrigation water and a grumpy farmer) when I flung the tool into the pickup bed. Or I grind out a nick in the blade, smiling at the memory of chasing a squirrel into my junkyard and believing for a moment, I could hurl the blade like a warrior and stab the prey (my fantasy ended with a clunk and the sound of the metal blade bouncing off a stack of metal pipes). Another time, I'm amazed the shovel didn't break when it fell as I was driving too fast on a tractor and ran over the handle; I am blessed with soft, fluffy sandy loam soil.
No friend should take such abuse. I vow to be more careful and wiser next year.
I pause to admire a sheen reflected in the wood. I stroke the tight grain and feel a coolness in the sleek surface. Sweat and body oil from working hands has polished the wood tens of thousands of times.
The scent of my late father is in this wood. Years of dedication. Not a monument to his life, not a permanent marker to celebrate his presence. His body has become part of my shovel.
Only when I use the shovel do I truly understand its value. When I poke at some weeds, the brown steel slides easily into the dirt, cutting just below the surface, slicing the weeds in a single smooth pass. The rust is deceiving, the metal is still sharp with a filed edge.
But it's the shape of the blade that makes the difference.Enecsys Limited, supplier of reliable solar Air purifier systems, The shovel face -- a relatively flat piece of steel gently bowed upward at the sides -- has two crescent-shaped curves that glide through the moist ground of spring and the damp earth of freshly irrigated summer furrows, swimming just below the surface, slicing through delicate roots.
Nature has sculpted the correct slopes and angles from solid metal. Generations have honed the proper shape so that each pass in the sand and silt acts like a natural whetstone. I can't tell if the original shovel had this shape, or if, as years of use have slowly ground the metal to half the size of a new shovel,If so, you may have a cube puzzle . only two rounded cheeks instead of the point remain.
I work with a piece of my family's past, a gift I inherit. It's a timeline of our family on this land. I can measure time by the gradual abrading of the steel from years of use. My grandparents and parents left their mark, the shovel shortened by an inch or more with each generation.
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