Rural Heritage August/September 2025

this a job worth doing well, or does it just need to be done to get by? Beware “temporary” solutions, though: if your provisional repair functions just well enough, you might end up not fixing it for a long time.“Temporary” tin-covered wooden shacks built on the Iowa State University campus as soldiers’ barracks during World War II remained as student housing for more than 50 years—the construction was just good enough to forestall further building. Maybe that did end up being a great use of materials after all. Which gets back to that basic question: when is making do good enough? Six. Make do with what you have. Rural residents from cash-strapped places and times have long practiced using materials on hand, combined with ingenuity, to meet needs. Long before the environmental movement developed the slogan “reduce, reuse, recycle,” rural folks did that—and “repurposed.” Country folk were masters of improvisation. Need a feed bin for animals? Find a hollowed log in your woodpile, cut it in half lengthwise, and nail sections of scrap lumber to the ends. Or fashion a hanging feed bin from an old tire by cutting around the rims (to leave loops for hanging), then carve off ¾ of the tire so that the remaining 1/4, turned inside out, makes a nice size for an animal to eat from. Another tire feeder option is to use the tire in half parallel to the treads, turn it inside out, and nail a board to where the wheel was. Indeed, rural dwellers found all kinds of uses for old tires. Tire swings are a classic, of course—the simplest a tire suspended from a rope, which I swung on during my childhood. Later my dad made carved seats, like those feed bins, for siblings. Now, elaborate horse swings assembled from various tire parts sell for a pretty penny online. Larger tractor tires were white washed and used to enclose flowerbeds. Tires were cut and placed on protruding corners as safeguards. These uses have declined in recent years, perhaps due to recycling and harder-to-cut steel-belted tires. Baling twine/wire is another old standby. Indeed, fixing something with “baling wire and chewing gum” meant a common inexpensive repair. “Bubble gum and (shoe)strings” indicated things just barely held together with leftover materials, done on a shoestring budget. Baling twine is supplemented by electricians’ tape or duct tape for many repairs: patching holes in

waterproof boots or holding soles onto leather boots; wrapping rope ends to keep them from unraveling; “hemming” the edge of a saddle pad or horse blanket to keep it from fraying; and repairing a halter or bridle. Caution! though—tape should only be used for supplemental straps, not for major stress points, where a break could allow an animal to get loose. And beware the “temporary” fix. Make it a priority to properly repair harnesses and other tack. Dad also used electricians’ tape for book binding repairs, which he elevated to an art. Some treasured family books still remain on the shelves after decades, bound with those distinctive black strips.

Seven. Beware the “soft trap.” Dad learned to be wary of getting too comfortable with “labor-saving” devices, technology, and creature comforts. Pulling a plow down a furrow with a team requires physical exertion and doesn’t allow you to sit in an air-conditioned tractor cab—but the team works reliably with a lower cash outlay and fuel costs. Riding a horse or mule down a trail isn’t as smooth as riding in a Cadillac— but the equine can get you to more places and with pleasurable partnership. Living within limits requires tradeoffs and discomforts. Keeping animals keeps you tied down to a place and schedule, and lots of folks dislike the perceived drudgery. But others find satisfaction amidst the hardships and wouldn’t have it any other way. Eight. Small is beautiful. E.F. Schumacher’s 1973 book by that title advocated for keeping work small-scale

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