“If you want to know what the world looked like after the deluge, visit a barton (barnyard) in the winter.” From the book, “We Make a Garden” by Margery Fish. At least that is the quote as I remember it, because some (former!) friend has purloined my copy (or I’ve possibly mislaid it).
A couple of nights ago, after securing the sheep, I stepped out the front door of the barn to survey our modest kingdom. A couple of cold weeks, with heavy rains, had left a slurry of frozen mud and muck at the entrance. The laying down of straw helped the situation in the short term but made it worse in the long term. The straw served as a deceptive floating island on the sea of mire.
This island, I was instantly aware, while beginning the survey of said kingdom, would not support my modest two-hundred pound frame. A frame launched, “slipping the surly bonds,” for brief moments before gravity pulled it back to earth in a long slide, only a hay bale intervening to slow its progress.
Funny how dignity attempts to reinstate itself in the most unlikely of situations. There I was with a solid streak of mud caked on one side of body from ear to calf and I bound up out of the muck as if nothing had happened, I’m sure, for the benefit of the watching sheep and pigs.
Well there is nothing dignified about a grown man stripping down to his birthday suit on the front porch, temperature thirty-four degrees, before being allowed entry. But thanks to a capacious hot-water tank, this farmer was able to reemerge minutes later with an acceptable standard of hygiene.
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Reading this weekend: Home Gardening in the South by H.C. Thompson, Farmers’ Bulletin 934, USDA, February, 1918.
Ah, the nobleman emerges from the barn – surveys the kingdom. A majestic landscape lies before him. An errant step, a sudden plummet from grace, and our noble descends from majesty to jester in a moment. No broken bones, no lacerations; a bruised ego. The ego heals with less impact on your life’s arc in my experience. It makes for fine anecdote, and I’m guessing the barn exit is just a tad different today than it was earlier in the week. A few scrap 2x4s or discarded chunks from the sawmill can help there – I discourage brick and concrete scrap to fill such an entrance in case a subsequent fall might do more serious damage. Of course I’m not calling upon personal experience here. 🙂
So – the 1918 USDA Bulletin on gardening in the South is sneaking up on its 100th anniversary. How much different are things now than then?
An excellent idea, the lumber to give purchase; I’m sure you mid-westerners have more experience with the winter muck and mire. Ours is of a more limited duration.
The Thompson bulletin is quite current for a hundred year effort. It is short, concise and contains practical advice that one would expect to read in the current issue of Mother Earth. I collect these old bulletins whenever I can find them.
Cheers,