Jury-Rigging in the Barn

What makes someone a true Vermonter? I think about this sometimes. I wonder about the Vermont dairy farmers. These hard workers are as much a part of the Vermont landscape as the barns and silos. Do they feel like true Vermonters when they're marking their territory with the manure spreader?

If it isn't your job that makes you a Vermonter, is it your wardrobe that does? Is a closet of Carhartt work clothes, serious mud boots, or handmade hemp clothing a tip-off that you're true-blue to the state? Are wild patterned wool socks, peeking out from Birkenstock sandals, a Vermont calling-card? Or the felted wool hat you purchased from the sheep farmer?

Perhaps it's the contents in your freezer that reveals your true status? Freezers filled with meat, wrapped in white paper, without a grocery store name. Packages that indicate one knew where this animal lived and grazed. A pantry lined with canned fruits and vegetables, all plucked from your garden. So is this the secret sign, being conscientious about where your food comes from?

Some folks say that if your grandparents were born here, then you can call yourself a true local. Others say that if you have relatives up in the Northeast Kingdom, who bury their money in the back yard, never trusting the bank, then you have serious roots in the state. Still others will look strictly to your accent as the true mark of a Vermonter.

While there are many theories as to who is a true Vermonter, I suspect I could qualify on a few levels. My grandparents were born and raised in this state. I still have relatives up yonder, a few that I suspect have the hidden money thing going on. I eat locally, including raising and slaughtering my own sheep. I have mud boots and help muck out the barn. Yet, in all this I have never actually felt like a true Vermonter. No, for that to occur something out of the ordinary would have to happen, and it did.

I pulled on my farm boots this particular morning and headed to the barn for a quick fill of the feeder. I walked in and discovered some of the sheep wandering freely in the inaccessible part of the barn. Normally they are confined to their area with two barriers: a metal cattle gate and a long hay feeder. The hay and feed supplies are stored in the back for obvious reasons. My job was to figure out how the lambs and smaller ewes had gotten back there.

Soon I saw it. A gaping hole in the metal fence. The bar which vertically supports the fence was dangling in pieces. The horizontal support bars completely bashed in, courtesy of an angry alpha ram. In the middle of these poles were 2 by 3 grid fencing which now had a sheep size hole through it. Hay bales strewn apart were now covered with sheep poop. The escapees stood munching away, enjoying the all-you-can-eat smorgasbord.

I looked at my fence; it was in sorry shape. I looked at my checkbook; it was in sorry shape. There was only one option: jury-rig it. I scrounged up some spare fencing along with some blood-red twine from unbound hay bales. I began to patch the hole. I tied and knotted the spare fence pieces in various places. The twine hung down like ribbons on a package. The grid fencing was bent in odd contortions. I yanked, pulled and continued to tie the metal pieces together to construct a barrier. It looked awful, like a twisted metal patchwork quilt with twist-ties. But the task was done; the hole was fixed. I had solved the problem like a true Vermonter, with scrap metal and no money.

I expect my pathetic looking fence will stand there until my angriest ram decides to completely beat it into a pile of rubble. Then I'll have no choice but to buy a new one. But as for this old one, I'll always remember it as the bent, battered gate that turned a girl in Vermont into a true Vermonter.