Dad-in-law and the Push Hoe

Maybe you’ve heard this one:  If a man is walking in the forest and he’s talking to himself and his wife isn’t there …. Is he still wrong?

That was my father-in-law.  And he was a gardener.  He’d work hard all day at the autobody shop, get home, eat supper and then head out to his big garden.  He grew corn and potatoes and raspberries and peace and solitude.

When I asked him for his daughter’s hand in marriage, he thought he finally got to make a real decision.  Obviously he said no.  I don’t quite blame him, I was skinny, longer haired and two just months earlier had been a teenager.  But his wife caught wind of that decision and changed it immediately.

He liked to pick fights with me, arguing over fruit tree pruning styles and such things.  He also gave me a personal gift – a gardener’s tool – a home-made push hoe.  He told me it was the best thing going.  Now, he was handy with metal, not so much with wood and this push hoe had a long slender handle and a blade made from a piece of an old sickle mower blade.  It had been out in the weather like so many other people’s tools and the cross tee on the end of the handle was rotten and loose with a rusty nail in it.  The blade wasn’t currently attached.  I accepted it, stuck it in my garage and ignored it.

About 20 years later, at a garage sale I saw a commercially made vintage push hoe blade.  No one else knew what it was so I got it for a couple bucks and stuck that in my garage and ignored it.  About another 20 years later I got the pieces out and decided to mount the ‘newer’ blade onto the older handle.

The handle was a lovely ash.  I removed the rotten, wobbly cross tee with its nail, then carved the other end into a taper for the shank of the blade until it fit nicely. 

 

Next, I found a piece of an old pool cue and cut that to size for the tee.  I cut, drilled, chiseled, carved, shaped and sanded until the two pieces fit together so well that they required no fastener to hold them together, just a few drops of oil to swell the joint.

 

Then I got to try out the new push hoe.  It was amazing.  I’d struggled for years with maintaining the weeds in my paths, most recently swinging my heavy grub hoe and making a bit of a mess.  This new tool slid effortlessly a quarter inch under the packed soil, taking out the weeds just below ground level. 

 

Too bad I waited so long to find out, Dad-in-law could have used the encouragement.  Two weeks after he turned 65, he had come downstairs for breakfast and told mom-in-law he’d been given a verse that morning from the Lord.  

“For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.” 2 Timothy 1:12 KJV  

Even though he knew the scriptures well he had often struggled with his assurance of salvation.  A few hours later, at work, he had a massive stroke.  After months of hospital and rehab he lived at home for another nine years.  But his marriage was vastly improved.  Mom-in-law was happy with someone to look after.