For all of his deep down seriousness as a farmer, Grandad also had within him a much lighter streak. It didn’t surface very often, but when it did, the results were delightful.
His farmstead’s cluster of buildings dated back to the early 1900s. Included were the two-story white house, big red barn, red machine shed, a wood corn crib weathered to gray, and a white concrete building for storing grain.
To that, he decided to add a small and simply designed hog barn about twenty feet wide thirty feet long with a single sloping roof. It would contain separate stalls where mama hogs (sows) could have and nurse their newborn baby pigs.
Back then, farmers were always looking out for what was happening on their neighbors’ farms, especially anything new, different or unusual. If they didn’t know or understand what was going on, they would invariably stop and ask. It was no surprise then that no sooner had Grandad poured the concrete floor for the structure than nearby farmers began asking him what he was building.
Their curiosity had no bounds so as the building began to take shape, it was natural for them to ask what color he was going to paint it. With a smile, he told them he didn’t know. Because he was known for his thoroughness, they found his answer difficult to believe even after he assured them his answer was an honest one.
He had decided to do something he’d never done before. In fact, he had never known anyone who had done what he was about to do.
In a way, it reminded him of when, a few years earlier, he had built a ten-foot square, three foot deep tub shaped concrete tank from which his cows and horses could drink. He saw it as adding to, then eventually replacing an old metal watering trough. None of the neighboring farmers had such a structure, so as expected, it created a lot of interest.
The normal procedure would’ve been to simply fill the tub with water and turn it over to his livestock. Instead, he talked my grandmother into christening it by filling it with water, letting the sun warm it up, then the two of them climbing into the tub to splash around. At the same time, he invited a couple of friends to witness the event.
That antic was in keeping with his wanting to give the new hog house an unusual if not distinctive look. The summer before, he had painted the entire interior of the farm house with different colors being used in the nine rooms and two hallways. As a result, several partially filled cans of paint had been left over. His idea was to dump it all into one container, mix it well, and use the result to paint his new hog house. What that color would be was anybody’s guess, but whatever it turned out to be, he knew it would definitely give his hog house a special look.
After completing the structure, he heightened the drama and mystery among the neighbors by purposely leaving it unpainted for several days. Then with no one looking, he managed to paint the building during one long evening. Even as he finished in the near darkness, he couldn’t really tell how it looked.
The next morning, however, and in dazzling sunlight, there it stood—hog house showing bright pink with a faint tint of blue.
For sure, it was the only pink hog house in the county, maybe even in the whole state, a laughable “didja hear about” topic of coffee talk. Grandad reveled in having created a lighter side to go along with farming’s serious side. About three years later, however, he covered the no longer fresh and already fading pink with a coat of the usual white paint. Yet, the story of the pink hog house lived on as long as he did.
Not having a new hog house to paint shouldn’t be your excuse for not spicing up your life. Just as one size doesn’t fit all, neither should every life be filled only with the usual or normal.
Instead, come up with your own color of paint, then follow the instructions on the label—the ones you wrote yourself.
