Sharp Tools

I was splitting wood the other day with my second favorite ax. That ax belonged to my wife’s grandfather, Glen Buckmaster. I like to split wood and remember him. I only knew him for a few years, but he was a fine man.

The ax was bouncing back at me, so I figured it needed sharpened. I hit it with the grinder to reshape the bevel and then honed it with a file. The wood exploded apart when I hit it with the sharpened ax. I clearly need to sharpen my tools more often.

And this is a good excuse to quote one of my favorite poems.

“Except as a fellow handled an ax,
They had no way of knowing a fool.”

Robert Frost in the poem “Two Tramps in Mud Time”.