Scissors sharpened

Happy April Fools Day! I guess the joke's on me. I thought the next set of flower pictures I'd be taking would be cherry blossoms since spring is heading towards our part of Japan rapidly. Hah! Woke up this morning to snow! It hasn't snowed in April in our town in years and years! I guess that will hold the cherry blossoms off a couple more days.

Yesterday I finished little Luke's quilt and today will get a label on it and wash it once before delivering it. I'm amazed how fast it came together but that is thanks to Tonya's wonky quilt class last year since I did get a lot of practice making letters. Also thanks to Bonnie's leaders/enders I had a great supply of those on hand too. Ok. Back to other things.

Yesterday afternoon the doorbell rang and I found an older man standing on my doorstep. Ah, another salesman. We regularly get people coming by wanting me to get my house re-roofed or re-painted or re-something and I always politely decline. We also have many sales trucks slowly wandering around the community with speakers blaring announcing their services for hauling garbage, selling kerosene, collecting old newspapers or selling laundry poles. I don't pay too much attention to them either. Yesterday's old fellow handed me a piece of paper (which I could barely read) and I got the gist that he was a knife and scissor sharpener. Hmmm. Yes, I could send him on his way, but I do have scissors that get a hard workout daily and have never been sharpened. If I don't take advantage of this man's services they may never get sharpened so why not? I inquired about prices and it didn't seem unreasonable so I collected two of my scissors. He was so pleased and promised to have them back to me in 30 minutes.

After he left I decided I wanted a picture of this process so I got out my camera and went looking for him. He had waved his hand in the general direction of the neighborhood and there I found his small van and him diligently working on my scissors. He'd put out his sign and had a generator going and had a whetting stone ready. As he worked I chatted a bit and found that he also fixed shoes and umbrellas but that not many people bother to have those repaired nowadays so he mostly did sharpening. It seems to me that it would be a hard way to make a living since he charged a piddling and I seemed to be the only person in the neighborhood that was interested in having something sharpened.

I do feel that if anyone's scissors deserve to be sharpened and oiled then mine do, so they are now sharp and smooth and ready for more fabric!