“The most commonly used tool on the farm?” he drawled.
“Well, I guess that would be Pete.”
He smiled as he answered my question by supplying the name of his hired hand. Then he spit on the whetstone in his hand and continued sharpening his knife.
“Say, would you like me to peel you an apple?”
The loogies on the blade and the stone reflected glints of sunlight as I declined the offer.
“The most commonly used tool on the farm?” She had worry lines on her forehead as she repeated my question to herself and looked toward the barn.
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“The most important tool would have been one that could have saved that calf’s life the other day, but no such luck.
“I skinned it out with my jackknife and tied the hide on another calf, so the cow would accept one of those twins that aren’t getting enough milk. So far, so good.”
I caught up to the next interviewee while he was feeding cattle.
“Common tool? Well, in my experience, the one I really need is usually the one that I left back at the shop,” he said, as he cut the strings off the hay bales and returned his knife to his pocket.
The guy working under the hood of his pickup at least gave a precise answer to my question.
“A good battery,” he grunted, as he scraped the posts and clamp with his knife.
I asked a farmer who was cleaning compacted grease from a bolt hole and another farmer who was stripping the plastic off electrical wire ends and a farmer who was scaling the pike he’d caught while ice fishing.
They all gave different answers to the common tool question but they all had the same thing in their hands.
Whether a farmer is called upon to castrate a bull or cut accumulated twine from the manure spreader paddles or tighten screws or pry off a stubborn distributor cap one pocket-sized item will likely be used for the job.
So, it appears my query drew little direct input but it yielded an answer nevertheless.
In fact, I have it on pretty good authority that this common farm tool can be found in the handbags or coat pockets of most farm women – and farm-raised-but-no-longer-on-the-farm women too.
Wait, let me confirm it.
Yup, that jackknife is still in my purse.
