When a bad idea is the only idea, it is only then that it becomes the greatest idea.
Most old farmers are the masters of making things work and just making do with what they have.
We live in rural areas miles from town and parts stores. Sometimes the parts we need can cost big money. Growing up working for a farmer taught me to be a master junkyard engineer/ mechanic.
I started my junkyard degree and repair service when I was kid. I learned it from those old timers, I learned most of it from the best. My mentor Lee Roy Hays, who only went to school to the 6th grade…but he was a genius when it came to getting by. Those old guys learned from living through the big wars where everything was rationed, unavailable, and most everyone was poor.
They learned to save everything as it might have a purpose down the road.
I learned to use red fuel hose for bicycle inner tube. I have welded up things that should have been thrown in the bone pile that are still in use today. I have used permatex and cotton to fix radiators and cracked
engine blocks. I’ve had tractor tires that I bolted “boots” in because I couldn’t afford a new tire. I’ve used soup cans, bailing wire, and inner tube by the truckload… the list goes on and on.
I’ve done stuff that both mechanics and engineers would scoff at. But you do what you gotta do to get by. Sometimes you can go to town and buy the part and have it fixed in half the time, instead of digging for something that might work from the bone yard… but I couldn’t afford to.
You can spend money on new stuff or try to make do with what you have, it might work or it might not…if it don’t you try something else.
I’ve done so much with so little for so long that I can do just about anything with nothing!
All because I was willing to learn, and I had somebody willing to teach me… where there’s a will there’s a way.
I’d rather fix the faded than have to pay for the flashy.
I’m a farmer just trying to get by…
