CULT: Tools for digging irises

What follows is a forward from a friend of mine whose grandfather was a
blacksmith, who, naturally, forged and repaired tools.  I had asked my friend
about pitchforks, bill dookies, and sharpshooters after this thread developed
just to see if I was still sane.

I used to go to the blacksmith shop, too, where we had made a 'spade' with a
metal handle.  My dad got so tired of breaking the wooden handle on the spade
that he took the spade and some pipe to Mr. Maxwell, the blacksmith, and told
him to 'fix the spade forever.'  And, he did, and I still have it, probably
sixty years or so after Mr. Maxwell fixed it.


"Walter,
    It would be almost impossible to dig up an iris clump with a
pitchfork.  The tines are too fine and sharp, and would bend under that
kind of pressure.  A pitchfork is made for pitching hay.
    I never heard a bill dookie referred to as a sharpshooter until I
was grown.  Plumbers and city folk call a bill dookie a sharpshooter.  I
guess it sounds better in polite society.
    Somewhere in the back of my feeble mind is the idea that the word
bill dookie is a corruption of some  French word.  I am working on my
fence row now, but I will make it a project to see if I can find out
where the word bill dookie comes from."

John

Walter Moores
Enid Lake, MS USA 7/8 
    

Walter Moores

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