About Fencing

Not the action kind that involves swords and sabers and Zorro,(though the old electric fences could certainly give that effect, and I can verify that personally) but the kind that kept the cows corralled. Most fences around the farm yard were made out of wood rather than the fancy pipe ones they make now, which improvement I applaud. The wood fences had to be painted over and over and over. Though it seemed we painted them all every year, Dad told me once that he bought a 5-gallon bucket each spring and painted til it was gone. Sometimes it was red paint, and sometimes it was white. Somewhere I have a picture of my two oldest boys "helping" Grandpa paint. Apparently not all five gallons went on the actual fences, and my suspicion is that the painting did at least as much to keep us occupied and out of trouble as it did to improve the looks of the wood.

Well do I remember Dad's diligent upkeep of those funky cedar fence posts. They were famous for tipping one way or the other, causing the wire staples to work loose. He kept a tin can with fence-mending material and a hammer on hand on an every-day basis. There were also some wire-stretchers for more major repair. Somewhere along the line, he developed a real interest in collecting old barbed wire, probably because it was a visual symbol of hard work, with some creative ingenuity thrown in.

He had some of his own wire, people learned of his interest and gave him some they came across, and he would take his metal detector on rides to old places to search for stuff like that. It was one of his few hobbies, that and reading. He mounted them on a shed wall, then later on something more mobile. One time he was asked to show them at a library or school in the Logan area and give a small presentation to some kids. I remember that day; he dressed up in a long-sleeved shirt, shined boots, bolo tie, and ever-present hat. It pleased him that someone would care about what he had done. It was always his pleasure to learn and teach others about historical and conservative things. 

 After my dad passed away, a caring craftsman built several professional wood-framed panels, all labeled and covered with glass, to display Dad's barbed wire collection. That would have pleased my dad, and did me as well. 

1941

Today marks seventy years since my mother and dad got married, her first anniversary without him. I imagine today was one of the longest days of her life. Love you, Mom!!!


In honor of their farming years, here is a bit of trivia to store in your brain:

Barns are red because the original "paint" farmers had was a mixture of things lying around...milk, oil, and rust. That's what it says. It makes sense. I don't know why the milk or rust, but the oil was probably to protect the wood from the elements. Perhaps the rust just gave it color, or maybe it gave some boost for lasting, or even might have been a bug inhibitor. Maybe the milk was a catalyst of some kind. Maybe it was to make the cows feel at home. Maybe....

Who knows? I'm sure they had their reasons and, frankly, I can't imagine a barn any other color and am not going to start second-guessing any farmer...or farmer's wife, either.

Harvest Home

During the Top Shot show last night (and what a great episode), there was a trailer for a new tv series called "Harvest", which begins tomorrow. It caught my attention, not because I intend to watch it, but because it was a catalyst to an old memory. Recalling the event causes me mixed emotions, and here's why:

I love windchimes. Some people hate them. Such is life. I can't help it if people are weird :o) My neighbor, Carolyn, had a wonderful big windchime that went bong bong bong, in a low tone. I told her how much I enjoyed hearing its soothing sound. (Had it bonged constantly, I would have felt differently.) Another neighbor complained to her about how annoying it was and next thing I knew, here was Carolyn standing on my doorstep with a gift...her windchime. I put it outside my back door and considered myself one lucky duck.

When my granddaughter came to live here, we had a few nights of canyon breezes, and the bonging scared her so much that she spent the nights wide-eyed, like Calvin and Hobbes waiting for the boogey man under their bed. So, unfortunately, my windchimes are resting in the shed for another day.

This all comes to mind because I need to mow my lawn. Here's how that ties together.

We had purchased probably three lawn mowers in five years. The salesmen, of course, always say how wonderfully the mower starts up at the first pull. Invariably, sometime the next year, I'd end up all but pulling my arm out of the socket trying to make the thing start.

When I was a teenager, we had an electric lawn mower. It did, indeed, start the first time every time. The problem was that you had to flip the blankity blank cord over the mower every single round! I tied enough knots to make a boy scout jealous trying to keep that cord plugged into the mower, to no avail. It was the one time (back then) that I allowed myself to swear. This was done at the same time I was beating the cord over and over on Grandma's fence post.

About this time of year, maybe five or six years ago, I became near-apoplectic over the latest machine, which had sucked the cord back into itself like a Jack Benny penny and would not relent one iota. No idea if I was swearing then or not, but it's possible. Right then and there, I made the judgment call, got in my truck, and drove directly to Lowe's. While in the mower aisle, I noticed they were playing music, windchime music. How relaxing and amazing is that? Then I went to Sears.Guess what??? They were playing the same music!!! My first thought was what a coincidence! Then it dawned on me that maybe some big corporation, possibly Coca-Cola or Pepsi, owned BOTH Lowe's and Sears. It could happen, you know.

Meanwhile, after driving home carefully with my new acquisition, I went in to get some help unloading it. Nik said, "Mom, why don't you ever answer your phone?" I said, "What do you mean? I didn't hear my phone ring."

Then I remembered.

Nik knew how much I loved the sound of windchimes and had given me a set years before, so when I recently purchased my cell phone, I programmed it to have a tinkling windchime sound when he called...