Yes, handled again. Each in orange osage, maclura pomifera if you like, bodark if you like, the spade noteworthily in that the wood I grew from seed.

The metal of this spade seems fine enough. John Deere though, let this post record the fact that their selection of handle wood needs a little work. The original handle snapped under what seemed to me entirely ordinary pressure. To de-handle it I used an angle grinder on the rivets and a half inch dowel to punch out the broken shaft. To re-handle I used a draw knife to taper the piece of osage that I’d grown. Four one inch brass wood screws instead of two rivets to lock it in place.

I don’t know where this aluminum scooper from but it had been lying about unhandled in barn for a few years. Industry can meet vision, even in trivial circumstance. Unable am I to calculate the utility quotient, not because it is infinitesimal, but because I cannot predict the future. It seems that honest shovel work may not be part of the future of America. I judge that to be a great error.

Thank you dear reader.