A Collection Of Goods

Do you collect anything? I think most of us have collected something or another during our lifetime, I myself had a rather large collection of pig things at one time, many people still do collect. But nobody collects things, or as many weird things as a farmer.

City people might collect as well, we all manage to find something that we enjoy. But city folk tend to collect the finer things in life, like paintings, vases, sculptures, or fancy dishes. Country folk collect odd things, but still not like farmers do. Think about it, when was the last time you drove by an old farm and didn't see some sort of a collection of the farms history of equipment out in the back of the property. Look out on to the lawn and you will see a collection of neat items growing or meticulously placed there to make a "fine" country lawn. Like a bunch of old plants, or an antique peddle bike simply left to kinda rust out there, it was most likely ridden by one of the occupants of the house in the decades past. Often on the lawn is a small collection of old wagon wheels, I am going to guess that the back yard collection is missing wheels because they all ended up on the front lawn with vines and flowers growing around them. They usually look pretty beautiful too. But take a stroll into that same farm house and you will see more collections, not much unlike the city folks, you will see dishes, handed down from many generations past, cook books, photos and paintings will decorate the walls and shelves. These though aren't here because they are pretty or worth money because they are done by some fancy artist, they are here because they hold the history of that family, and are priceless to them. Open up one of those cook books, and take a whiff, it smells like fresh baked bread, baked beans, honey, and pickles all in one. There is also a feeling of warmth, love, and hard work in that book, you can feel it in your hands. There has been many a meal and dessert made from the pages of that little hard cover. Many gatherings around the dining room table because of it, where all attending had to unbutton their trousers because they just fit too tight after eating. That book is also from the days when every person that sat at that table would thank and kiss the lady of the house for making such a fine meal for them. Instead of all eating separately and thanking some sort of fast food restaurant. Ah the history of just one little book and what it meant to a family.

The things that most of you don't know are the collections that farmers keep "hidden" so to speak. No, it isn't that we purposely keep them locked up in a secret location so that no one can ever find them, it's the collections tucked away in cupboards, garage shelves, pantries, barns and sheds that tend to get a little messy. That is where farmers keep the good stuff. Here at my little farm those collections are few and small in size right now. We have only been at this for about 10 months and have yet to buy a tractor, and only purchased our first riding lawn mower a month ago. She is a nice old green lady, I have a feeling that over the years to come she will build up her own collection of parts in the storage garage. Give us 20 years and we will have some of the monstrous piles of "keepers" found at most farms, I will talk about some of these collections later. The good stashes are at the "real" farmers properties, the ones who have been farming for years, or better yet generations. Even when my own Mother passed away, my sister and I had the "joys" of going through all of her collections (aka stuff). I know what I found that weekend and what can be found around my Dads place even now, as well as the stashes that are beginning to form at my own house.

It is hard to decide where to begin, so maybe I will start with the most common, the ones that are found at if not "all" farms 90 percent of them. How many do you have piling up in little dark locations. A group of at least 50 mason jars minimum, but usually more, and when you shop for jams and other foods in jars, you look for ones that you can wash and reuse for pickling in the fall. Egg cartons, again, at least 50, and family, friends and neighbours stop by and drop off more all of the time because they think that you have 75 chickens laying eggs every day instead of only 10! Don't get me wrong we appreciate the cartons, they can only be used so many times before they just fall apart on you, they pile nicely, and a 6 foot stack is about 120 cartons so should it ever decide to rain eggs at least I know that I will be prepared to store them. There is nearly always a drawer, mason jar, coffee can or ice cream container of rubber bands, I mean you never know when they might come in handy and as a matter of fact I saw a 1 pound bag this afternoon at "Dollarama" and it even made me all excited, my oldest son advised me that I really didn't need a bag that big of rubber bands and that I would have to live to at least 100 before I could use them all. I didn't buy them, reluctantly and thinking that some how soon I am going to have a rubber band shortage and know that had I bought that bag I would have been prepared. :( The rubber bands lead us back into the mason jars, (see that is why we keep them!) it also lead us into the coffee can, and the 2 litre ice cream container, yes many keep them, they come in so handy for storage, for many of the things I will mention coming up, so we might as well collect them for future collections! One mason jar, and no not the little 500 ml ones, I mean the big 1 L jar at least at the half way mark full of buttons. Random buttons, some bought new and others carefully removed from old shirts that were no longer patchable. My own mom, by the way had 3 of these jars (one with whites, one with colours, and one with black) when we cleaned up so I could just imagine the little old farming grandma that has been mending and making clothes for the last 65 years. She would most likely have all 12 of hers in separate colour jars. A drawer in the kitchen is nearly always dedicated to the reusable things like aluminum foil, cling wrap, milk bags, grocery bags, twist ties, and bread tabs. There were many other amazing little trinkets found at the bottom of that drawer that used to make us look at our mother oddly wondering just why? A few other random things found in farm house collections are as follows Styrofoam trays, foil pie plates, (and yes we will take them home from someone else's house), scraps of material, my Mother had a whole steamer trunk full of just small left over pieces from 30 years of making clothes. Small balls of yarn, a box of old and holy tea towels, underwear, dish clothes, face clothes and other good "rag" material. There was always a cupboard full of good food storage containers, because farmers save their left overs of course, we wouldn't ever throw away good food.

When you walk out to the storage sheds, garages and barns you will see what the men collect, this is their domain. The ladies collect things inside the house and men collect everywhere else on the property. Almost all men have a small pail or box of bent nails and screws, these have been hammered out of reusable boards that are also put into their own collection pile in an out building somewhere. These nails are nearly always removed by the younger members of the family, just learning how to properly use a hammer, I easily remember days spent outside taking nails out of boards so that they could be reused somewhere else, but why did we keep the bent nails?? More so I wonder why my husband now keeps the nails and we even found a whole box of bent nails when we moved here and we just keep on adding to it. Eventually I think that it will become to heavy to be lifted. What will happen then? What will he do with it? Is that the sign that he is supposed to build a house or just start a new pail? There is nearly always a large collection of tire tubes, and belts hanging on a wall somewhere, not the kind that hold up your pants either, these are the kind that make your machines operate properly, there will be a pile of scrap steal, with odd shaped and rusty pieces staring at you when you walk by the pile. Sure a piece or 2 will be used from here every year, but 5 or 10 more will be added. The pile just seems to keep on growing. My dads got moved outside into an old trailer and we just kept on piling it higher and higher. You will see collections of truck parts, tractor parts, tiller parts, snow blower parts, chainsaw and lawn mower too. Many of these parts belong to equipment of the past that has now been put into the scrap collection, but still, he will hang onto that part, because "You never know when a friend or neighbour might need one". Each vehicle, tractor or any basic farm mode of transportation will have a little collection of tools found under the seat. Because of the once again, "Well it could break down, and I want to be prepared." There are collections of the "unknown" even when I take something out of it and ask "what is this for?" He will look at me intensely then shrug his shoulders and say "I don't know anymore, but don't throw it away because then when I need it, it won't be here." Need it for what? How will you know when you will need it, because you don't have a clue what it is for?

Ahhh, the fun of collecting jointly! One of my favourite collections is the "Round-to-it" collection. It is the often rather large group of things that will be fixed when he "Gets a round to it" this group might sometimes have things from the house, but most often it is things of his, because he loves you enough to always put your things at the top of the list, and he tends to then almost immediately after what ever it may be breaks. Which really makes you love him more. I suppose that the women have a "Round-to-it" collection as well, at least I do, and my Mother did, and her Mother before her did as well, that is the pile of ironing, and mending that needs to be done, but we just haven't gotten that far as of yet. The collections of all of us come in many different sizes and of course everybody collects different things. Please share some of your favorite, your oddest, or the oddest collections you have seen. I even have friends that collect basset hounds, not stuffed and toy bassets either, I mean the real live waggy things too. Maybe I will even start a basset collection!