I have subscribed to the magazine Farm Show off and on for many years. It is full of inventive ideas farmers do to solve their everyday problems. It shows how creative farmers can be. Of course, you learn to “make do” with homemade things when money is tight. For a farmer, that is almost always. He probably had to borrow from the bank for seed in the spring, hoping to pay it back when he harvested in the fall. A farmer is always looking for ways to save money. Isn’t that the definition of invention, looking for a cheaper or easier ways to do something?
I remember watching a TV program about inventions. The problem was needing a better cat litter. Imagine my surprise when they cited an inventor at Leslie, Michigan. I remember driving by the sign on the side of the road advertising a certain inventor. That was the man the program cited. He even named it “cat litter.”
My Dad was such a person. He could do mathematics in his head. He would have a problem solved before I could get it down on paper. If he had a problem, he would mull it over until he found a solution. His harnesses for our two horses, Sweetheart and Molly, were works of art. “Fix up or make do” was the way he approached any problem. Farmers are like that, you know.
What do you do when you want to graze your milk cows in a certain field. First of all, there had to be a fence to keep them in that area. No fence? No money to build one? Maybe you don’t want to fence that area off for good, just for the time being. What do you do? Why string an electric wire. That way you can cordon off only the area you need at that time. Sounds simple enough. However, electric fence kits are expensive.
Did I mention that my Dad was an electrician? Well, he was. Why not put up a fence of barbed wire and electrify it? Why not, indeed!
First, he pounded some wooden stakes in the ground about every eight feet or so. Then he screwed electric insulators in the top of each stake. The next thing to do was string the barbed wire between the stakes on the insulators. That arrangement won’t keep the cows corralled. He needed more.
Next, he found a light bulb socket in his tool box. Dad wired the bulb into the barbed wire circuit. He could run a heavy duty orange extension cord from the barn to the fence. What size bulb was needed? To big and the shock could kill you. To small and it wouldn’t deter the cows from crossing the fence. I don’t remember what size bulb he used but it gave you a good jolt if you touched the barbed wire. The only downside of this arrangement was it had to be extension cord or less distance from an electrical outlet. I think he solved that problem by using a car battery. Anyway, it worked.
This was just an example of my Dad’s problem-solving ability. Was his electric fence system legal? No way, but that never stopped him. It was his land and his cows. It was no one’s business what he did there. Anyway, it worked.