Necessity is the Mother of Invention!

Have you ever used or applied the term  “Necessity is the mother of invention”?

Have you had to move something unusual or out-of-the-ordinary and have to figure out a “new way” to do something?

If you have, people like you and my dad certainly understand “necessity is the mother of invention”!

My dad did not have a lot of fancy tools when he and mama first bought the acreage that is now Scurlock Farms, so due to many “necessities”, he figured many “mothers of inventions” to get things done.

There was an old, dilapidated barn near the front yard of where mama and daddy wanted to build their dream home.  From an aesthetics standpoint for mama, the barn could not stay where it was, nearly in the front yard – it had to go!

Daddy was going to need a barn and since he didn’t waste anything, he wasn’t about to tear that barn down!

In order to appease mama, daddy put that “necessity is the mother of invention” theory to work and figured out a way to move it about 1/4 mile down the drive to a new site, using only his tractor and a jack as real tools.   It now sits nestled in a grove of large live oaks along the bluff.

Daddy jacked up the middle of the barn and cut long cedar posts from trees on the farm.

He put several of these under the floor of the barn.  He then elevated the back end slightly, inserted more cedar post “rollers” and “rolled” it down the drive to its current location, using his “new” Farmall tractor.

That poor old tractor was worn out when daddy got it, with many, many miles already on it and a hole in the floor, but boy was he proud of it!

Daddy would roll it along until the barn was almost off the cedar posts.  He would then stop and reposition the cedar posts so he could roll on down the road some more.

Later daddy extended the roof 24″ down the side of the barn to cover over a cement trough he built.  The next year he got his tax notice and the county had upped the taxes considerably on the “improved, larger” barn.

Daddy went to the tax board to protest and told them he would tear it down before he paid more taxes on it.  They relented and left the taxes where they had been.

Daddy WOULD  have torn down the new addition.  He was a man of principle and if he said he would or would not do something, he held to it.

The old barn site became mama and daddy’s garden.  Seeing produce growing was acceptable to mama and it was very handy to gather produce from!

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