You know you have reached a “certain age” when items that were once part of your everyday life are now considered antiques, and are being used as lawn ornaments.
Repurposing pieces of old farm equipment continues to be very popular among home owners and business people who are seeking that “rustic” look. Nothing says homey like a battered cream can placed on a porch, beside a seat fashioned from a horse-drawn mower. A rusty tractor is the perfect focal point for a flower bed. Take an old-fashioned plow and a few steel wagon wheels, add a bale of hay impaled by a fork and you have a rural motif that will be the envy of your neighbours, and Martha Stewart.
Of course barn board never goes out of style. Weathered timber has become valuable since nobody is making stables like that anymore. Even rusty nails can be cobbled together to produce a conversation piece. And horseshoes are a proven go-to accessory whether you are dressing up a den or sprucing up a cottage.
Every flea market is bound to have somebody selling an assortment of hub caps, well used hand tools, ropes and rusted scythes, all just waiting for a good home.
Humans have always been fascinated with the past, even though we seldom learn from history.
But it is bemusing for certain older people to see displays and installations being made from the things that were once considered modern.
“Hey, we used to actually use one of those on our farm, back in the day,” a senior citizen friend said while spotting a horse-drawn mower, parked on a lawn that was the centre piece for an arrangement of annuals. Those mowers, tiny compared to the massive reapers that are common today, got the job done. But they were made in an era when farms were much smaller than they are today, and the pace of life was much, much slower. One learns patience when working with draft horses, which basically have one low gear. Equine power is fine, if you have only a few acres to tend.
Oldtimers chuckle when they see threshing mills at museums. Before the arrival of combines, threshers were used to separate wheat from chaff, employing a series of belts, pulleys and screens that are almost hypnotic to watch when all the parts are going full tilt. Day-long threshing bees were highlights of the harvest season. Neighbours would go from farm to farm, gathering to bring in the sheaves, and catch up on the news. That custom now lives on in historical photos and artists’ versions of pioneer life.
On walls right beside those images you may find frames featuring printers blocks, remnants of the letterpress printing era.
Think of all the outdated devices that are potential accoutrements and accessories.
Advancements have altered all aspects of our lives.
Consider how office equipment has evolved. The fax machines, carbon paper, erasers, manual typewriters and adding machines, rotary dial telephones and even the cash drawer are candidates for museum displays. Few people still carry paper money and coins. Cheques are rarely used. Paper concert tickets are going the way of the dodo bird. Remote work is reducing the need for the conventional office.
“Communication” has become so sophisticated that we are slowly but surely losing in-person contact with other humans. There is an app for everything. Who needs friends when artificial intelligence can help you devise your own perfect companion?
Banks are determined to do away with human tellers. Grocery stores and pharmacies do their best to force customers to employ the self-serve lines.
Lost your way in a big city? Planning a trip or looking for a good restaurant? We do not need to ask for directions or seek tips from a real person. We have smart phones.
The phone booth has become an old-school oddity, like rabbit ears on a TV, or a television antenna on a roof. Paper road maps are collectors’ items. The days of paper election ballots are numbered. Online voting is used in many municipalities; it is a matter of time before the federal and provincial governments follow suit.
Power tools with wires are no longer cool. The same goes for gas-powered vehicles and fossil-fuel-burning lawn and garden equipment, which will eventually face the same fate as lead-based paint and heavy duty weed-killing chemicals.
Someday all of the essential devices we now use will be considered quaint, and even vintage. And some of them may end up on a lawn or porch.
It would be hard to make a laptop aesthetically pleasing. But a cell phone would be a natural for a unique hanging mobile.
