Making a Rusty Barbed Wire Wreath!

 If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!

So when you live on a farm, things accumulate. There's bound to be stuff lying around - stuff you get tired of seeing!  Right? Can you identify with this??

Lately I've come to a new appreciation of the treasure trove of junk items that could be useful to me in a new way. I think that would called 'recycling.' I think my husband would call it, 'You gotta be kidding.'  Well, this is my attempt at embracing the junk around our place. SO, with some inspiration from other bloggers, I went in search of rusty barbed wire. Did I find it? Of course - along with lots of other rusty junk.

Hanging by a spring

What you see before you is a newly-wound roll of old, rusty barbed wire, an old spring with which to hang this 'wreath,' and a 'rose' clipped from an old bed spring. Oh yeah, doesn't everyone have this junk lying around???

The background is made from a couple sheets of a sort of tongue-in-groove metal that was leftover from building the grain bin (probably built about 60 years ago - yes, that was before we bought this farm).

The main corn stalks were ones discarded from the garden, and the ears sitting on the rusty stool are actually popcorn, so I'll have to make sure to keep an eye on them so the mice don't move in and eat them before we do.

The pumpkin spice candle was given to me by our daughter-in-law. She knows I love pumpkin spice!♥♥

So listen up, ladies, don't waste your time wishing your husband didn't accumulate junk. Embrace it! It could give you an whole new hobby! :-)

 ***

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What's in the Backyard

Dandelions and Lath

When you've lived at the same place for over 20 years, it's easy to accumulate a little too much stuff. The lath, at least, is useful. We use it for kindling. We have to take the nails out first, and then break it over the knee into lengths that will fit into our stove. You really don't want to have missed a nail when  you're going to do that. And it's always nice when it breaks on the first attempt.

More useful stuff...

well, maybe

These rusty old wheels really appealed to me, photographically, that is. I asked Kevin what they are and he said they fit inside a wheel and have something to do with the brakes on a semi trailer. My mind sorta zoned out after the first paragraph. I mean, I just need a general idea, not specs on semi trailer brake drums and whatnot. 

I'm not sure why they're lying next to the wood pile and just to the left of the dumpster, but I'm sure there's a good reason. If I were clever, I could think of a way to use them in landscaping - a sort of country accent amongst the flowers. But around here, they would look like just another piece of junk that someone set down on their way somewhere and didn't get around to picking up.

(Hmm. I think I just solved the question as to why they are where they are.)

By the way, they were lying there just like that, posing nicely for a photo.

So, what's lying around your yard today?  And if these wheels are no longer needed for the semi trailer, got any good ideas of what to do with them? They're too heavy for weight lifting - at least for me. But I know how you fellow Bloggers can turn junk into treasures, so I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on this!

Clover Blossom

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Useful Junk

I thought I would write a post entitled, 'Useful Junk.' And then I could tell about the long list of stuff that resides in various nooks and crannies of our property, such as a chartreuse-gold ceramic bedpan my husband found on a jobsite. He came home with 'Hey, look what I found! I bet it's an antique!'




or the several perfectly good slate blackboards we acquired because the schools were pitching them. 'How can they DO that?? Why would anyone want a dry-erase board when they could have this beautiful slate board??' I would demand, stroking the blackboard and for some strange reason, feeling a little sorry for it for being discarded.




Then there are the time-capsule-worthy artifacts, like the huge pink rollers I used on my hair when I was sixteen. Yes, sixteen for me was quite some time ago. In fact, just a year after the Kennedy assassination - and I do remember where I was. I may not have any Kennedy memorabilia, which might actually have some monetary value, but I do have 3" diameter pink rollers! I've hung onto those rollers all these years so that my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren could see them some day and appreciate what great lengths young women of the 1960s went to, to ensure they would wake up with a stiff neck.

And someday, as the wee great-grandchildren crowd around to hear Great Grandma croak out another story, I will tell about the days I used to iron my long hair in attempt to look hip, like Mary, as in 'Peter, Paul, and...' who were always leavin' on a jet plane, while I was always just leavin' on the school bus. And have you noticed, that you can turn on your TV and still find Peter, Paul, and Mary, still leavin' on a jet plane! for yet another pledge drive.




My pink rollers are still in the granary - where I put them when we moved here 21 years ago.

And our collection wouldn't be complete without lawnmowers in various stages of disrepair. Then again, one never knows when someone will show up with just the right part to fix it - and leave it lying there, next to the broken lawn mower, for another generation.

Growing up with parents who endured The Great Depression of the 1930s, some things just rub off on you. I'll admit, it's not just my husband who falls easy prey to the unusual and possibly useless. For me too, it's hard to throw away a plastic ground-turkey container when I know it can be converted into a drawer divider or a picnic lunch box or a raspberry 'basket' or a crayon box! That type of thing.

Just wait. In a year or two, or sooner, when times get really tough, when unemployment has risen through the roof and hyperinflation has kicked in, you'll wish you'd hung onto your pink rollers and your chartreuse-gold bedpan too, I bet!