Re: CULT: Tools for digging irises

----- Original Message -----
From: <wmoores@watervalley.net>
To: <iris@hort.net>
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 3:07 PM
Subject: [iris] 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
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
> message text UNSUBSCRIBE IRIS

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE IRIS
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index