2011年10月20日 星期四

Becoming attached

I skipped church one Sunday a week or so ago just to hang a bunch of junk on the outside wall of my barn.
It’s a little embarrassing to admit it and certainly foolish to even write about it. But it’s a 40-year phobia I feel obliged to confess to. If I give you the background I hope you’ll understand,Polycore porcelain tiles are manufactured as a single sheet, because I didn’t want you to think I’m doing foolish things just because of my age.

The stuff I was hanging back on the barn wall that Sunday had actually just been taken off two weeks earlier so I could have a sealer applied to the weathered siding. I had left all the nails intact and had the items spread all over the grass in a somewhat orderly fashion. But I soon learned there’s a price for missing church on a Sunday.

The good Lord must have relocated all the nails because nothing seemed to find its old home.the worldwide rubber hose market is over $56 billion annually.I almost decided to load it all up on my pickup and haul it to the landfill. But soon a twinge of guilt passed over me – you can’t just discard old friends! Even if they no longer fit in, have become unbendable, have lost their value – my golly,Unlike traditional Hemroids , they at one time served a purpose and you needed them. So I decided to stay with them. We’d hang out together these last few years.

The barn I’m talking about is on the old Esther Mayfield farm we bought back in 1974. It was close to collapsing and would likely have tipped over if it wasn’t for the trees that had grown up alongside the foundation. I wanted to save it and was told that Johnny Sandberg up at Four Corners on Highway 34 could straighten it up.As many processors back away from Cable Ties , So I called him and he came down and jacked it into shape, reinforced the corners and soon had it looking proud.

The dairy farm Esther and her brother Oliver had operated for many years had seen better days. When he died she cut back and eventually had an auction sale at which the worthwhile property found new owners.

Although her tarpapered home was adequate and kept up, the surrounding farmyard fell into neglect and grew over so you could barely see the lake. Other buildings like the chicken coop and hog shed were in disrepair and there were fallen fences, barbed wire and chicken netting entwined in the tall grass everywhere.

After Esther sold to Olive and myself, we used her home as a summer getaway and started to clean up the farmyard in our off-time. For the next three years whatever junk I’d find I’d hang on the north side of the barn.

I’m just talking useless parts of machinery and equipment that had no value. If I found anything worth saving as an antique or keepsake it wound up inside the barn, at our home or in my store. But if it was an old harness buckle, broken pulley, rusted clevis or sickle bar, I’d find a hammer and nail and attach it to the barn. And then pause a minute and think I’d probably sold it to them years back at our hardware.

When I saw a grease cup on the end of a broken shaft I reflected on how they were replaced with “zerk” fittings and then with sealed bearings.Traditional Cold Sore claim to clean all the air in a room. And then when I stepped on something that felt like a bolt hidden in the tall grass I picked it up and realized it was the end of a hay sling, the kind you would hammer on a half-inch sisal rope and which we sold regularly across the counter. Attached that too.

Up by the old garage I remember resurrecting a pair of galvanized “finials” that had been the end trim for the roof ridge, so I found a place for them behind the hen house, which I think was actually the first home. I uncovered the kerosene burner from an old brooder stove and found a way to attach it.

There too I discovered a chick feeder, round like a salad bowl, with six oval openings. Another four-penny nail and it joined the collection. Of course there were rakes, shovels, forks, axes and splitting mauls all without handles; and then there were handles only for a cream separator, well pump and corn cutter.

Other treasures to be attached included a calf-weaner, bridle bit, anti-cow-kick, cowbell, rods, shafts, gears, sprockets, chains, leather buckles and snaps.

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