Pieces of massive stars in my garden

I like old tools, mainly those linked with agriculture or forests, used by farmers, wine producers, breeders or carpenters.

As an agronomist I find amazing a simple plow. Modified by men across centuries, it has been a successful tool for fighting hunger and poverty.

Here is one of our plows. An old model pulled with horses or cows. I have a thought to the blacksmith who made it and to the farmers who used it to feed people. I do not know these men or women who certainly passed away long ago, but I respect them very much together with those who do this noble but tiring work nowadays.

This iron plow speeks about its origins too: the heart of massive stars. Only giant stars have enough gas and energy to produce heavy chimical elements as iron at the end of their life, and even hearvier elements when exploding. In their boiling heart, billions of kilometres away, the iron this plow is made was created and crossed the Universe to form the core of The Earth and hide in the crust rocks where men found and melt it billions years later.

Tillage is not appreciated now. Due to the green house gases it produces it should be avoided to limit climate change. But alternatives are not easy to find. More to skip the cost of plowing than to limit emissions, many farmers worldwide are now sewing without plowing, the so called zero tillage process. Doing so, they often need more chimicals input to kill adverse weeds or to fight crops deseases. On top of the pollution incurred, the production and the use of these additional chemical products is a green house gases emitting process…

I just painted this plow against rust and it will shine for another decade in my garden. It does not open the soil anymore but will tell me the story of men, earth and stars, every day, when I pass by.