My maternal grandfather was a hard working man. During his working career during my life he was a mechanic for Greyhound Bus Lines. However, somehow during his life he gained a lot of knowledge about woodworking.
When he retired from Greyhound he became a full time cabinet maker. My aunt was opening a Hallmark gift shop and he made all the display cases for her shop. We have a small table that he made and we use it in our tack room to hold our hay scale.
I didn't learn much about woodworking from him, but I did learn one important lesson -- a good craftsman takes care of his tools for without them he's in trouble. Cleaning and sharpening his tools was an important investment of his time.
As horse people our tools are our saddles and our bridles. We try to clean and condition our saddles and bridles every six months -- once in the Fall before cold weather hits and once in the Spring before the warm/hot weather hits.
That's what we did yesterday on Saturday afternoon. Cleaning and conditioning means taking everything off our saddles and bridles, applying some cleaner to get the worst of the dust off and working in some conditioner to keep the leather flexible.
If we don't do this regularly the leather will dry out and crack. Dry leather can even break and when you're riding you don't want your latigo (the long leather strap that holds the cinch to the horse's belly) to break. If that happens you can wind up riding under your horse because the saddle slips all the way under -- not a fun thing for you or your horse.
PS to our horse friends: Quite a few years ago we were in Ohio Amish country with some good friends. We found an Amish saddle maker/repairer way out in the country. I asked him what he used to clean and condition his saddles, especially the saddles he repaired. He recommended Bickmore Leather products. We used those almost exclusively since and find they do a great job on our leather items, including our shoes.
So, what does this have to do with a Sunday Reflection?
As we were cleaning and conditioning our tack I began to think about my tools in my Christian faith. There are several -- prayer, Bible study, gratitude, connection with other Christians, etc.
Like my Granddaddy's tools and our tack, if I don't take care of my faith tools they can get dull and dry.
Regular prayer makes for sharp and conditioned communion with God. Regular Bible study makes for a sharp and conditioned mind and spirit.
You get the idea.
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2 comments:
A most welcome reminder..
Thank you for the reminder!
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