Time for a confession. Do not trust me with your pocket knife, for I have lost another one. It was a handy little French grafting knife from Opinel. Easily replaced and inexpensive. But it replaced a more expensive Le Theirs pocket knife, which replaced a German pocket knife, which replaced another in a long line of perfectly good knives….
Pocket knives I have lost
Try an exciting thought experiment: Put yourself in the shoes of this farmer. Or make that a pair of rubber Wellingtons because it is raining or snowing or icing. You are driving the tractor. It is sliding this way and then that as you make your way up the hill pasture. Ahead the cattle are bawling, waiting for fresh hay.
In preparation for dropping off the hay, you first have to remove the baling string surrounding the round bale. You climb off the tractor, in the rain or whatever, and pull out your pocket knife, where it has been nestled securely in an overall pocket, under a barn jacket, under a raincoat. Reaching up, you cut the strings on the bale. And here is where it happens.
In the rain or whatever, as the cattle gather round impatiently, you do the following: Once you’ve pulled the various cut strings off the bale, you place the knife on the fender well of the tractor and you simply get back on the tractor and drive off. You will find this an extraordinarily effective means of losing a knife.
Then there’s a second option (my personal favorite). In this scenario, you fold up your knife and slide it into the raincoat pocket. And your knife vanishes immediately and forever. Because every farm raincoat has two fake pockets. These are the slits that allowed you to reach inside your raincoat, under your barn jacket, to access the overall pocket and remove the knife in the first place. By returning the knife to the raincoat pocket-slit, you have conveniently deposited it directly into the muck, snow, or whatever for eternal safekeeping.
You never notice its absence immediately. You assume it is in another coat, in a different pair of jeans, on the kitchen counter. But after days turn into weeks, the reality becomes clear: “I’ve done it again.”
Anyone want to loan me their knife?
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Reading this weekend: The Classical Tradition in Western European Farming by G. E. Fussell. A dry but interesting work on the impact of classical farming literature on actual Medieval farming practices. Books create innovation!
I do latter of the two quite often in my warm weather and cold weather gear :-p.
Well, shoot, JD, I thought you were going to comp me a pocketknife. How is the Americorps position going?
The project has failed to fund but I have instead found myself organizing presenters and speaking at the Bonnaroo Learning Gardens this year.
It’s always the little things, no? Am wondering if I’ve had a slightly better run of luck with pocket knives. Still packing only the third one I’ve ever had (though it may deserve a fair retirement for all the service it has provided). The second one spent a calendar year entombed in a corn field. Found that sucker the very next year – quite by accident. A season buried in the field didn’t help it any, and having purchased a replacement I tossed the miracle into a desk drawer.
Were I can commiserate with your poor fender knife was the first pocket knife I “lost”. Still have the carcass of that piece too… but it’s service now is to illustrate what happens when you drop your knife into a running combine. Perhaps I should post a photo of that one. Also have a few fragments from an old flip phone that slid into a running combine. A colleague once thought I needed to hear his sage advice that the combine is for plant materials only.
Clem,
The Buck knife in the bottom of the picture was lost. But like your miracle knife the pigs turned it up after a few years. Sanded off the rust and it is still with me. I must have run it over with the tractor. For it has an odd bend to the handle. But it closes and is still used. Buck knives, however, are fiendishly hard to sharpen.
Cheers,
On knives that are hard to sharpen…
My family has started a new religious holiday—which so far we have observed once.
It arose out of my wife’s entirely unacceptable habit of leaving chef’s knives dirty and scattered about the kitchen.
So, to draw her attention to the knives, we created The Sabbath of the Knives.
It should be celebrated on St. Barnabas’ Day. He is the patron saint of cutlers, seemingly for being flayed alive.
On the Sabbath of the Knives we make an altar for the knives and put all the knives in the house on it. The entire day we eat nothing that has been cut or chopped. So, porridge in the morning. Soup with appropriate ingredients for lunch, with hunks of bread torn from the loaf. You get the idea.
Then in the evening, we invite friends over and do a total sharpening. I use a Dremel to ease the edge of knives that are too blunt for the stones, then hone them up. We shred many sheets of paper to show the smoothness of the edge.
I heartily recommend this to all serious users of knives.
Man, I love this idea. I’m adding it to my holiday calendar.
I inherited a stack of fine pocketknives from my grandfather, which means when I lose one there is extra heartache.
My father uses a fixed-blade knife in a belt sheathe.
Now that is a fine inheritance, indeed! I’ve been wearing a belted knife for the past few days. But I did go online an order three replacement Opinels. That should last a few years. So, Ruben, when are you going to favor us with another post?
Ha! You flatter me. I am supposed to be writing a presentation right now, but instead I am mending fences.
I would second the opinion of the gentleman from Tennessee – those of us from the contiguous 48 have suffered a long drought of favor from the smallanddeliciouslife. It helps only a little that at least we now know you’ve not been eaten by a polar bear. 🙂