This is another of my six-sentence flash-fiction contributions.
Here is another Carrot Ranch 99-word prompt story. The word is Chisel.
I have a set of chisels. They are very sharp. I use them occasionally, but I don’t have the skill or training to use them elegantly. When I use tools, though, I think of my mother who could look at mechanical devices and understand them. She had the patience and natural talent to use tools effectively, but in the mid-Twentieth Century, she was never allowed the pride she deserved in her skills. My dad’s embarrassment (because the man’s supposed to fix things) gave him no ability to appreciate my mom’s solutions to farm problems—in the house and out.
The winter of ’88 started late with an ice storm that took out tens of miles of power lines, snapping poles at the ground. Later, snow filled the windbreak between the corral, with its water lines, and the horses. My husband and sons dug a tunnel through the windbreak, but bits of drift persisted into spring. I was working the garden when my baby wandered off. I followed his cries and found him sitting in a puddle of snow melt. Normally, Ben didn’t like his bath, but that day he was really pleased to have a dunking in warm water.