Dad's Old Trowel

Dad's Old Trowel

The trowel was old. Scratched and worn from years of digging deeply into hard scrabble soil, rich loamy soil or soil so filled with rocks it sharpened the edges of the blade every time it was used. Matt remembered the day his dad brought it home. It had a green painted handle and a shiny shovel end - he learned to call it by its proper name. A blade, much tinier than his dad’s big shovel that he used to dig the big holes. He had no idea why he had kept this old and rusted tool in with the rest of his garden tools. Matt often used it. The shape of its blade was not one of the many modern shapes, but wide enough to start a good sized hole for the spring time tomato plants. His dad’s trowel did have a depth gauge on the back. Matt was standing on a stool beside him on his workbench the day his dad scratched all the levels and inches on the back of it. He was curious, because it looked like he was damaging that shiny surface, and all the kids had been told never to damage any tools. To keep them as much in their new condition as possible. Here he was going against the rules he had laid down. Patiently, he explained that he wanted to measure the depth of a hole for particular plants. His dad said he could have driven back into town for one that already had neat engraving, but that would take too much time and a few more dollars. He had wanted to get planting.

Well, it wasn’t spring time and his tomatoes were ripening nicely. The old trowel had grabbed his attention. He kind of compared it to wanting to dig deeply for a work project that had been assigned to him. But how deeply, he had yet to figure out. Matt had no gauge like the one on the back of the trowel. He certainly couldn’t go out to the garden and dig out all the information he needed. Matt pushed back the wide brimmed straw hat he always wore in the sun. Like his dad, he pulled out a big red kerchief and wiped the sweat from his brow. Well-worn blue jeans and a plaid shirt with the sleeves cut off, his garden ‘uniform’.Taking the trowel with him, he decided that he may not be able to dig up any answers, but thick weeds choking out some of his garden needed rearranging. A big swig of water refreshed him. Hot sun, butterflies and birds beckoned. Work needed to stay at work. He needed to get outside and dig some real soil.

“To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi