I never understood as a young man why Dad didn’t fix the barn door. All it needed was a proper hinge.
But a few loops of baling wire did the trick for Dad… worked almost as well, at least for awhile, until he fixed it again. I never understood why he didn’t just go buy a new hinge – didn’t understand until now I’m older, too.
As far as Dad was concerned the back porch didn’t need a new screen door after the old one fell apart, and the barn lot gate didn’t need hinges at all. Dragging it in a long arc across the opening was easy enough, and baling wire was the only hardware ever needed.
I was never sure, either, why Dad let junk pile up in the old school bus body permanently parked by the barn, or why he never fixed the garden fence after we boys were gone. He had other priorities.
These days Dad’s reasoning is perfectly clear. My hidden junk is in an old barn at the back side of the place and in my garage loft. I’ve been aiming to clean out both every winter for several years.
Unlike Dad I don’t have fences fixed with baling wire – just cattle panels secured with zip ties. They’ll work as long as I need.
I noticed as the years passed how Mom and Dad’s place began to look like an old man’s farm – which, in fact, it was – with fences and buildings in disrepair, a couple of old cars abandoned in the back pasture, and hayfields left to the rose bushes and cedar trees.
I couldn’t understand it – until now I see my few acres headed in the same direction.
There came a time when Dad sort of gave up fixing everything that was worn out or broken. As he got older, he pointed his old pickups toward the river or lake more often than toward the hardware store or farm supply. He got his priorities straight.
I never understood back then, but I’m working on it now. The 8-foot ragweeds along my barn lot fence are worrying me less and less, and my fishing poles calling from amongst the junk in my garage.
I just have a few things to get done first….
A former feature writer for Ozarks Farm and Neighbor, Jim Hamilton is a retired newspaper editor/publisher. Hamilton was reared on a small dairy farm in Dallas County, Mo. Contact Jim at [email protected].
