Rednecks at Work

Recently it seems that running into our gates is the in thing to do at our farm. In the last few months there appears to have been a memo circulated that everyone needs to run into our gates because it seems to keep happening. Our most recent gate victim is one of our gates at the road.

We have had even more people than usual in and out of the farm lately and we have no idea who hit the game this time. They did not choose to ‘fess up to their crime. Instead we went to open the gates at the road one day and one side had a coupe of loose boards and the other side was dragging on the ground thanks to a nice crack in the gate post. We have now had one of our front gates scraping the ground for a couple of weeks as we have yet to have suitable weather to do the repairs. We will have to pull out the old gate post which involves the fun job of busting it out of the concrete around it. Then we need to set a new post, and of course that post will need to be set in concrete. We need a couple of dry days for the concrete to set, and we cannot seem to get two days in a row without either a little or a lot of rain. This is so strange for August in the south but that is another topic for another blog.

Our driveway gates are so wide that you only need to open one side to drive in and out. Jason got tired of people attempting to drag our sagging gate open and closed and complaining to him about it, so he decided to spruce the place up with a sign on the gate:

How classy is that? “USE OTHER GATE” complete with arrow for those who cannot read. I like his always impeccable penmanship though.

Since Jason was being nothing if not thorough he nailed up another “USE OTHER GATE” sign on the other side of the gate as well, again complete with an arrow for those who cannot read. He wanted to make sure that people coming in and leaving knew which side of the gate to open.

When I saw Jason’s charming signs on the gate my comment to him was that they looked really redneck. To my surprise Jason got defensive about this and his comeback to me was “Why? It’s not like I misspelled anything?” I tried to explain to him that it wasn’t the correct spelling, or lack thereof, that was putting us in the redneck category. It was the fact that we could go to the trouble to cut a couple of pieces of wood, neatly print “USE OTHER GATE ——>” on them, and nail them to each side of the gate, but we cannot bother to actually repair the gate. This elicited even more defensiveness, comments about being unable to control the weather along with dramatically pointing to the sky while frowning. I tried to explain that although I understand these things, the general population at large probably just thought we were lazy rednecks that couldn’t be bothered to repair our gate. I didn’t get very far and I finally gave up.

Unintentionally I outdid Jason in the redneck category this afternoon. I was walking along on our driveway, heading to the barn at the very back of the farm. One of the many above-mentioned people that have been in and out of the farm lately working on a construction project was driving down the driveway and stopped to talk to me. I noticed he kept repeatedly glancing at my hands. I had a steak knife in one of my hands because I was going to that barn so I could cut up some pills for one of the horses. I said to him, “oh, I have a knife in my hand because I’m going to the rear barn to cut up some pills for a horse.” He gave me this look that said “okaaaaaaay” and wrapped up our conversation quickly and left.

As I continued my walk down the driveway I amused myself coming up with some theories as to what he thought was the real reason I had a steak knife in my hand as I strolled along the driveway. Maybe he thought I was mad at Jason? Maybe he thinks I am a serial killer? Maybe he thinks I walk around with a steak knife in my hand for self defense? Maybe he just thinks I’m a crazy redneck? I’m definitely leaning towards the last theory.

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Chance and Leo