What I asked for was a new Japanese digging knife.
I don't feel half a century old. It may be because I live in a town with the second oldest population in the US. Walking through the grocery store on a Tuesday (senior citizen's day) I feel like a veritable infant. I am usually quite surprised to meet my own reflection in the plate glass windows of the store. I have this theory that in our mind's eye we see ourselves at that age when we were most comfortable with what we see. In my mind's eye, I am 26 years old.
But in reality, when I kneel down to garden these days, my knees creak, and my wrists no longer have the stamina to pry up the rocks that grow more abundantly than even the weeds in our yard. That Japanese digging knife was a real fooler - I thought I could move mountains with it. Strong, heavy duty metal - the blade would pry out rocks with ease, then turn over and saw through heavy roots with its serrated edge. With it, I was invincible.When I lost it and went back to trying to plant bulbs with my trowel, I began to put more credence into the fact that I am half a century old.
Good, strong and effective tools are a must as we grow older. Often they can make up for our own failing strength. And fortunately, the garden industry, realizing that we baby boomers are not such babes any longer, are creating tools that they call "enabling tools" because they do enable us to garden with unreliable backs and stiffening joints. The longer handles and ergonomic designs of many of the new tools make gardening more comfortable - and so it remains enjoyable.
It helps, too, if the garden itself is easy to care for. I realized a few years back that my original garden, stuffed with every kind of plant I fell in love with, just wouldn't do when i got older - and it must have been 10 years ago that I started researching for ways to plant that would insure that I wouldn't have to give up my gardens because of my inescapable march into old age.
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