[AT] Old work boots ramble

[Gene Dotson]

    Dean;
    A great ramble. Brings back the things in life that make us comfortable.

    I too had planned to build my own barn. While at the Farm Science  Review
last year I talked to some of the barn builders and was given a price for a
complete and erected building for laee than I would have had in materials. The
crew started work at 2:30pm on Friday and were finished at 2:30pm on Sunday.
This is a 42' by 72' barn for my tractors and airplane. The company is Cleary
Building Sysyems out of Wisconsin. They have a sales and construction in Troy,
Ohio, so would be close to you. If you would like more information contact me
off list

                        Gene

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dean Vinson" <vinsond at voyager.net>
To: <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2004 6:22 PM
Subject: [AT] Old work boots ramble


: Spent several hours trimming trees and cleaning out gutters today, the
: kind of chore for which I dig out my old leather boots.  Over the course
: of many trips back and forth across the yard, dragging tree branches to
: a big pile that will supply indoor kindling and outdoor bonfires over
: the next few months, I noticed that much of the yard is pretty rough
: looking.  Bare spots, dips from where I'd burned out some stumps but
: never really filled it back in right, weedy places.  "Maybe I could buy
: something small like a Super C, and find a rear-mounted tiller for it,"
: I thought to myself.
:
: The northwest corner of the yard is where the barn would go, the one
: where I'd keep the Super M (and I guess the Super C, too, as long as I'm
: daydreaming).  Probably keep the bikes and lawnmower and extension
: ladder and such in there also, I suppose, but mostly it'd be a barn.
: I'd have to build it myself to keep the cost down and because I'd need
: it to be an honest barn rather than one of those pretend things I see
: out in front of the Home Depot.  Have to have a pretty high door to
: clear the muffler on the Super M, and of course some good workspace, so
: it'd end up being pretty big.  I'd have to add some barn details, maybe
: a haymow door up high.  I'd wear my old leather boots while I built it.
:
: Right now the woodpile is on that spot.  Not this summer but each of the
: two before, we had a crew thin out the trees in the back yard and cut
: down some dead ones from the front, maybe 20 total, decent-sized, 6" to
: 12" in diameter I guess.  The crew ground the tops into mulch and cut
: the wood into fireplace length for us, and by now I've got all but a
: little bit of it split.  That's a job for the leather boots, and while I
: split I remember splitting with my dad and loading wood into the old
: two-wheel wagon, hooked to Dad's '48 Case.  We just had the one wagon,
: so it hauled everything.  Kids, manure, firewood, fertilizer, seed, hoes
: and rakes.  Pumpkins and corn and tomatoes.
:
: Somewhere in those years as a teenager my feet found a comfortable size
: and settled down in it, and I didn't outgrow the BiltRite Huron crepe
: soled leather workboots that I'd gotten somewhere along the way.  They
: were with me when we baled hay with the Rosenberger's down the road, and
: when I painted the Ross's barns, and when we fixed the fenceline.  They
: were cold and wet and later stiff on days when I should have chosen the
: rubber knee-highs instead, but they were warm and clean and felt good on
: evenings when we looked back on an empty hayfield and a full
: sweet-smelling barn.
:
: Most of the years since then, 27 or 28 I guess, haven't seen me often in
: the field.  Now and then the boots still come out, soles too smooth but
: okay for what little I ask of them.  The tops seem unchanged, soft and
: light brown up high by the little brass ears that I wrap the last few
: turns of the laces around, but down low the bits of roofing tar, flecks
: of paint, anonymous scuffs and nicks blend into the deep gray-brown of
: history.  Such a plain thing, these boots, but they remember, and they
: wait with me.  They keep faith while my work years are filled with desks
: and talking and thinking and writing, while too many bills leave too
: little left, while toy tractors on my desk and tractor shows in the
: summer, and dreamed-of backyard barns unbuilt, fill in for the life of
: my past and future.
:
:   Dean Vinson  --  Dayton Ohio
: <http://my.voyager.net/~vinsond/>
:
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