Shoveling the grass
The other day I needed to bag the grass that had blown onto my cement driveway the last time I mowed my yard. Knowing the rake wouldn’t work well on the hard surface, I thought of using a broom, but the grass would just stick between the bristles or float off.
Then I thought of my blue plastic snow shovel. Perfect for scraping the grass from the cement and dumping it into the bag.
A neighbor driving by slowed and gawked, apparently wondering what I was doing with a snow shovel on a 70-degree day.
I laughed to myself and remembered that in my childhood on the farm we often used something intended for one task to do another. We didn’t have time—or money—to run to town every time something needed repair. Farmers adapted what they had to what they needed. Feedsacks, of course, were bought for one purpose—to hold feed chickens or other animals—and later used for another—to make clothing, aprons, curtains, quilts, etc.
The snow shovel wasn’t my only adaptation this weekend. An earpiece fell off my glasses and the tiny screw vanished. Nothing in my tool chest was small enough, but a threaded needle in my sewing kit would go through the screw hole. I sewed on the earpiece. The thread should hold until tomorrow when I can go an optometry shop.
As the old saying goes, there’s more than one way to skin a
cat.
—Carolyn Mulford
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