I have my writing group tonight. Mary had the great idea for each of us to write something for the Mine column in the Washington Post Magazine. The parameters are simple, Tell us what you treasure in 250 words or less, the task not so easy. Anyway, here's what I wrote:
I was the last one out of the demonstration garden today on our fieldtrip, and so it fell to me to latch the tool shed before following the students through the gate and over the tiny bridge. Before closing the door I stepped inside for a moment. It smelled like warm wood and soil with the slight tang of recently oiled metal. My eye ran over the hand tiller, hoes, and shovels, and I compared them to my own collection of gardening tools.
By necessity, my implements are few; as a community gardener I carry my gear with me. Of course I can use the common tools, but I have a few specialty items of my own. The most indispensable of them is the one we call the poaching spade. Compact, with a sharp, narrow, curved blade, it cuts effortlessly through even the hardest earth and is perfect for transplanting, which is a lot of what vegetable gardening requires.
The poaching spade came into my possession one Saturday as we helped my sister-in-law sort through and organize some of the contents of her parents’ house. It was the first spring since we had lost her mom, and it was also our first season in the garden. My sister-in-law’s parents were devoted gardeners, but the spade was barely used: the green paint of the blade was flawless, the oval Smith & Hawkin medallion on the shaft unworn.
“Take it,” my sister-in-law said, “it’s a good shovel.”
It sure is.
I was the last one out of the demonstration garden today on our fieldtrip, and so it fell to me to latch the tool shed before following the students through the gate and over the tiny bridge. Before closing the door I stepped inside for a moment. It smelled like warm wood and soil with the slight tang of recently oiled metal. My eye ran over the hand tiller, hoes, and shovels, and I compared them to my own collection of gardening tools.
By necessity, my implements are few; as a community gardener I carry my gear with me. Of course I can use the common tools, but I have a few specialty items of my own. The most indispensable of them is the one we call the poaching spade. Compact, with a sharp, narrow, curved blade, it cuts effortlessly through even the hardest earth and is perfect for transplanting, which is a lot of what vegetable gardening requires.
The poaching spade came into my possession one Saturday as we helped my sister-in-law sort through and organize some of the contents of her parents’ house. It was the first spring since we had lost her mom, and it was also our first season in the garden. My sister-in-law’s parents were devoted gardeners, but the spade was barely used: the green paint of the blade was flawless, the oval Smith & Hawkin medallion on the shaft unworn.
“Take it,” my sister-in-law said, “it’s a good shovel.”
It sure is.
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