Another Chicken House Story (Almost)

 BIG BROTHER  SAVED THE DAY

The 36 by 40 foot chicken house stood about 200 feet down the hill and about one third of the way to the barn in relation to the dwelling house.  Dad always parked the 38’ Ford log truck in shade of the large locust tree just a few yards from the house. 

It was a nice fall weekend sunny day.  A great day to play outside for two boys filled with imagination.  Jim, my oldest nephew and I came to where the truck was sitting.  We decided to pretend that we were driving the truck.  Our make believe cargo could have been logs for the sawmill or lumber and crossties from the mill to a distant city.  Once inside the truck I took my place at the wheel, and Jim, by my side would take the controls as our long day wore on.  It was hard work, clutching, shifting gears and handling the curvy mountain roads.  Though toiling as we pretended to be doing, we were having a load of fun.  We made the sounds of the engine as we climbed the hills.  Sometimes it roared high or was reduced to a growl until the change to a lower gear was necessary.  Down the hills and on the level we made the sound of an engine pulling its load with ease.  Finally our make believe day was done and two tired truckers still full of boyish energy went off to another adventure.

But, there was just one problem as we closed the doors of the old Ford.  We, in order to begin our journey released the hand brake and forgot to re-set it.  Also the gearshift lever was left in neutral and as we pretended to maneuver the curves, the front wheels of the truck were being turned down the slight slope where it was parked.  Because it was much easier for the front wheels to turn toward the slope, they were eventually turned all the way in that direction.  When we got out of the truck it was a disaster waiting to happen.

Jim and I were still playing in the yard just a few feet from the truck.  Wayne was walking from the barn to the house and he too was only feet from the truck.  He had no idea of the condition that we had left the truck. The sound of the creaking, rolling vehicle caught his attention.  Now, a few feet on its way down the hill to the chicken house or if not, the destination would be the creek below, Wayne sprang into action.  He ran to the driver’s side, jumped on the running board and reached for the steering wheel.  He could not open the door and get inside the moving vehicle but must some way steer it clear of the chicken house.  Holding on as the truck moved rapidly across the rough ground, he managed to save the day.

After Wayne had driven the truck back to its parking place we retraced its path down the hill and discovered that the wheels were only three feet from plunging into the chicken house.  This would have been the worse case scenario.  Wayne would have been sandwiched between the truck and the chicken house and without a doubt would have been killed.  I’ve been thinking.  Was he trying to save the truck or the chicken house?  Who knows?  There is one thing that I do know however he saved Jim and me.  He saved us from the worse chastisement we would ever receive but even greater, he saved us from a lifetime of remorse if he had not turned the wheels just enough to avoid the crash.

We were just kids but our irresponsible actions could have caused a lot of damage and could have cost a life.  Whether young or old, we all should consider what we do and how it will affect the lives of others. I am thankful for what my brother Wayne did.  He had a brave streak that came through that day that few knew ever knew existed. God in his wisdom and providence saved him for another day for which he would serve his country under the stars and stripes and later become a loving husband and father.

THE CHICKEN HOUSE ON THE MOVE

(Please notice the building in the lower left corner of the picture.  This is the chicken house)

Buildings on the farm didn’t move around but our chicken house did.  Listen to my story.

I never sought out trouble but a few times it just found me.  However there is a “life’s lesson” in this story.  Day was drawing down.  Time for chores to be done had come for me.  I’m the main chore guy, with Bill in Baltimore and Wayne in Japan and dad still at the sawmill, wherever that was because it had not been moved to the farm at the time.  On the way to the barn to do chores, like putting hay down to the cows, caring for the young calves and not forget the best hay and a gallon of oats for “Old Chuck,” (a horse) the only retire on the Gibby farm.  Then there was corn for the hogs and corn for the chickens.  As I passed the chicken house the bulldozer, only a few yards to my left caught my attention.  We were in the process of excavating for another forty-foot addition on to the original forty by thirty six foot hen house.  It was dad’s plan to double the hatching-egg output with this addition.  Floyd had been leveling ground for this new addition but the job wasn’t complete.

I had a wonderful idea.   I would start the dozer and move some of the earth to make way for the hen house extension.  “Everybody would be so proud of me,” I thought!  I knew how to start the engine and I knew how to work the controls, well, maybe.  I had been driving the farm tractor since age ten and this couldn’t be much more difficult, right.

After starting the engine I began to move forward toward the existing structure.  Closer and closer it came to the building.  I pushed on the clutch with my left foot but it didn’t stop.  I pushed harder and it still didn’t stop.  “Wham,” the dozer blade hit he building, and the machine didn’t stop, it just did what dozers do; keep going.  Suddenly it hit me; “That’s not the clutch, it’s the left brake stupid, push the hand clutch, stupid.”    Wow it stopped just before a major demolition took place. I put it in reverse and eased back from the building and shut the machine down.  My heart sank as I got down to survey the damage.  I had pushed the entire north side of the building two feet to the east.  I decided that was enough of making them proud of me for one day, but what am I going to do about the hen house which looked like its been somewhere but didn’t get quiet back home.  I had broken two of the wide pine boards on the corner but I must find a way to get the north side of the building back two feet to the proper place on the foundation.  I came up with an idea that would work.  I took the bulldozer around to the other end of the building and pushed it back in place.  The boards went back together, I parked the dozier back in its place and went on to do my chores which if I had done in the first place I wouldn’t be in trouble.

No one will ever know I thought, as I walked away from the scene.  “Maybe I will tell Floyd later,” I reasoned, because he will understand and break it to dad easy.  I walked softly for several days, until one-day dad said, “Why are those boards broken on the end of the chicken house?”   I told the whole sorry story and after blinking a few times (blinking his eyes was body language for displeasure), he said, “Well if you are going to learn how to operate the bulldozer, wait until someone I here with you.”

Dad was easy on me but I was deserving of a much harsher judgment, because I did not tell him what I had done immediately. 

A couple “life lessons” are here to be learned.  First, I acted without permission and second, the damage I caused was unconfessed but it was discovered just the same.  On the first count we are to do right at all times.  However, we all sin and do wrong and should judge ourselves and confess to our loving and forgiving Heavenly Father.  In time, He who knows all things will discover our sins to us and bring us face to face with Him. Oh, how much better it is if we bring it to Him before He brings it to us.

The Blacksmith Shop

          

                                                                                    

The Blacksmith Shop

         I remember going to the local blacksmith shop with dad.  In those days almost all towns had a blacksmith who plied his skills in iron working.  I would watch with keen interest as the man would put a piece of metal into the forge and turn the billows to intensify the heat until it was white-hot.  With tongs he would take it to the anvil where with his hammer he would shape it into a useful tool. 

        Dad built a blacksmith shop on the farm that was used to maintain farm and sawmill tools, and shaping horseshoes for the large draft horses that worked on the farm and in the mountains.

        Our shop was not as well equipped as the one in town.  However, we had the basics; a forge with billows, a supply of coal, an anvil, vice, hammers, tongs and cutting tools.  Dad loved to work in the shop and all of us tried our hand at the anvil.  Floyd was the most accomplished smith in our family.  I guess, in our shop he was the “master black smith.”

        I watched as he repaired a broken chain or sharpen the point of a cant hook with the greatest ease.  He would mend all kinds of things and even make something entirely different from a broken tool.  When you think about it, almost all things get broken, even humans.  Broken tools need to be fixed or remade.  At some point, we each and everyone must face the fact that we need the touch of the ”Masters hand.”  He alone can take our ruined and broken lives and make us over and make us whole.

        In Jeremiah 18, the prophet went down to the potter’s house and watched as he made a vessel of clay on the wheel.  It became marred as he formed it and when the potter saw that it would not be useful, he crushed it and made it again into another vessel, beautiful and useful.  The Lord, if we allow, will do the same for us when we are marred by our foolish sin and self will.  He came to fix the broken.  You may have a broken heart.  He can fix that too.   







This Old Shed's "Life Lesson"

We never called this structure a building.  It was always the tool building or "tool shed," but in reality it was much more.  Before this building was constructed there was no place on the farm to store expensive farm equiptment, which left it exposed to the weather.  Once completed it housed a tractor, corn planter, corn picker, hay bayler, combine, grain drill and other tools.  A room for fertlizer and seeds and in the upper level, harvested grain and feed.  It was a vaulable addition to eight other out-buildings scattered about but in view of the farm house.

I have thought about the important function of the tool shed for the last several days.  Dad loved and always wanted good equipment and wanted to keep it in the best of condition to extend its life and usefulness.  It was his general belief that we were entrusted and blessed with certain assets and these should be cared for and used properly.  He was not pleased if any of us did not put equipment back into it's place after use.  When as I reflect on those days so many years ago, I know now and I knew then that Dad was not only being a steward of the things entrusted to him but he was teaching me a "life lesson."  God has given each of us days, months and years, friends and family, talents and treasure and a call on our lives.  Are you taking care of these gifts.  Are you using them to enrich the lives of others and by so doing your own life as well?

Although weather beaten and standing like a ghost of the past, this "old shed," taught me a life lesson which I shall never forget.

Shep Masters the Ladder for His Master

Originally there was a 12-foot ladder leading up to a small platform and a door in the gable end of this building that provided access to the upper room.  Each day I would go up that ladder, into the room and get feed for the animals and back down.

I was amused that Shep my half Collie and who knows ‘half what else’ always stood at the bottom of the ladder, looking up and waiting for me to reappear through the door.  He followed me like my shadow.  Inseparable, he was my constant companion and protector.  One day I noticed that he seemed to want to follow me up the ladder.  I said, “Shep, do you want to go up the ladder?” Without saying a word he said, “yes.”  All you dog lovers know what I mean.  With his front paws on the first rung of the ladder, I helped him with his back feet.  One at a time we reached the top and when he came down it was scary but he made it without any help and without breaking anything.  The next day we tried it again and he did better and the third day he almost had it accomplished and on the forth he made the accent all by himself and had accomplished his decent with skill and safety.

In time to follow Shep was a great amusement to others and me as he followed me up the ladder.  I was proud of his accomplishment but now over sixty years later it’s not his skill in climbing a ladder that I think about but his complete devotion and willingness to follow me.  In the fields, in the woodland, by the creek and river, he was there by my side or just a step behind.  Oh, such devotion, may you and I follow our Lord so willingly and with complete trust.  Like Shep, even willing to learn the difficult in order to follow more closely.

This old shed

Through all the Summer suns
And many a winter's chill,
Snow and rain and balmy wind,
This old shed stands there still.

I have been thinking about when this tool shed was built about sixty years ago.  Dad hired a carpenter to help and oversee the construction.  Wayne had just returned from his tour of duty in Japan a short time before so he and I would play a large role in the construction.  Floyd and dad would help some but mostly it would be the carpenter, Virge Waldroup, Wayne and me.  I remember one day after we had framed up the first story and we were nailing the second plate to the top of it.  I had acomplished the art of driving nails having done so from the age of a toddler by driving nails in a crack in the floor which mom premitted to keep me busy.  With Wayne it was much harder.  The disableing disease, Fredreich's Ataxia, had already begun to effect his coordination and driving the #20 nails with a claw hammer was difficult.  I can see him now, straddling the wall and struggling to pound the nails into the hard oak.  Bending and straightening nails all morning long, I could feel his frustration.  After lunch when we met back at the building site Wayne had secured the shop hammer from the black smith shop.  It had a much larger head and it made it easer to sink the large nails.  I will never forget his determination to do his part even in the face of difficulty.

The shed was completed and we used it for tool and machinery storage for the years to come.  I have more to say about this weathered old building.  Come back again.