For the last 20 years the choker cable above has been hanging in our basement. The Deer Hunter doesn’t remember where he picked it up.
Every time we cleaned out the basement over the years he thought about getting rid of it, but decided he better just leave it hanging for a bit longer cause he might need it.
Pap held onto all sorts of things just in case he might need them later on. His basement was full of stuff and sometimes he even used the trees around his house and garden for storing things he might need 🙂
A few months after he died The Deer Hunter and I were down at Granny’s working in the yard. He was trimming tree laps that had grown too close to the porch roof and I was throwing them off the bank.
As I threw a big branch I happen to look up and see some pipes Pap had hung in a tree nearby. Silly as it sounds I felt like it was a sign from him that he was proud we were helping Granny since he was no longer around do the work.
The cable that has been hanging in our basement for almost the entirety of the girls’ lives was finally used last week.
Our driveway isn’t the best and the steepest part is right at the top just before it levels out. The mail lady has come up it a lot, but I guess she just didn’t hit it hard enough. As she got to the top she spun out and was forced to attempt backing down.
She made it about halfway and slid two tires off down in the ditch.
Chitter happened to hear the commotion so she went to see how bad the mail lady was stuck. She was stuck good.
I had been to get mine and Granny’s groceries and about the time I unloaded Granny’s and was about to head home is when the incident happened. Chitter ran in to tell me she’d already called her daddy to come home and see if he could help get the mail car out, but that I couldn’t get by her so I’d have to stay at Granny’s till he figured out what to do.
The Deer Hunter brought a chain with him to pull her out with his truck, but the way the underside of her car was made it was impossible for him to hook it. As he lay under the car in the gravel studying on what to do he remembered the choker cable.
He ran up to the house to get it and used it to attach to her car and then connected it to the chain. A few good pulls with the truck and the mail lady was able to drive out of the ditch. She let The Deer Hunter back her car the rest of the way down the driveway.
Once she was gone, he said “I knew I’d use that cable for something someday and although it took 20 years it finally came in handy.”
Last night’s video: Blackberry Dumplings in Appalachia.
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I have a tendency to move around often, so try to keep belongings to minimum but I have a friend who went to help another friend clear out her recently deceased mother’s house. The woman kept everything from 30 years of bank statements to plastic margarine containers and beyond. My favorite was a cigar box labeled ‘Pieces of String Too Short to Keep’!
Matt sure was a help to the mail lady. Thankfully, he had a handy choke cable to help attach the tow chain. I also have a small junk pile. Mom always said, “waste not, want not” and that’s certainly true
LOL did Matt tell her she needed to get a better “runnin go”. I used to tease my husband and my girls about being pack rats, but then I soon learned to hold on to things I may need one day. For many years we always did spring and fall deep cleaning and I would take things to the local consignment shop and some stuff I just threw away. Today, I wish I had kept lots of things I thought I would never need or use again.
What an interesting post today. We have a small home so we don’t hang on to a lot. This is off topic but I have a question, how do you clean your cast iron? I’ve heard so many different options. I think the silliest was to never wash your cast iron. I have a few pieces and didn’t really use them that much. After watching your videos, I’ve pulled them out and started using them, especially when I make your biscuits.
This reminds me of a funny story that happened long ago on my farm (before I lived here). We have a driveway that looks straight, until you start backing into it. Then you realized that it is slightly angled. Every week the milk tanker would have to back up about 100 ft. to the milk house to pick up the milk. To complicate matters, immediately to one side of the driveway is the house (about 6 ft. off) and about 3 ft. off the other side is the septic tank. It was quite the gauntlet and the new drivers would get jittery. Well, one time the driver was not making the not-so-straight shot and tried to pull out of the driveway and give it another go. He ended up getting hung up in the ditch and off the side of the driveway (septic side). So my great uncle went and got the tractor and chain and tried to pull him out, by driving across the road. Well the tractor got hung up as tight as could be, off the other side of the road, down in the hay lot with the chain stretched & attached to the tanker. So in effect they shut off the road with this chain, taut between the two vehicles. They ended up having to call the town highway dept. and having them bring bigger equip. to pull the tractor out to open up the road. Good thing about living in the country? You know, or are related, to all the highway dept. men so its easy to get help.
We hold on to similar stuff all the time. The Deer Hunter is one smart man! How do you think he would have solved the milk tanker problem : ) ?
Hi,
You post today fit me and Charles to a tee. We save EVERYTHING that is can be saved. It has really gotten to the point
that saving things just in case we will need them sometime has really started some big problems– storage. Our retirement
dream home, all 640 square feet doesn’t hold it. First we got a really nice storage room rented from a friend. It filled up with precious stuff. Several years later, we purchased a freight container that we got at a good price. Now I have forgotten what is in the storage container. I know my pressure canners, the Presto Gallon Jar Canner I used to can juice and items that require low pressures like apple sauce and tomatoes and the All American Canner I use to can my pork, green beans, potatoes, and corn. I have even canned water in the canners when the boys were babies for the sterile
water I thought they had to have for their formula. When canning time came around after we had stored them in the
container, Charles and I couldn’t find the Presto Canner and found only the bottom of the All American Canner. Instead of really digging through all the boxes which we forgot to label, Charles told me to “just go and buy a new Presto
Canner and a new lid for the All American. I did and the new canners work so well. Then I remembered that my mother’s canners are in the container too. I thought that would really be neat to have them too during canning season. I could have four canners going at once or 28 quarts of green beans or 28 quarts of plaintain greens. Fast work. Charles and I went back to the container and searched. We could not find them. My dreams of fast canning was no more. Now I can only can 14 quarts at a time maximum!. Well, in no time we outgrew the container. I fill up the barn loft with furniture We didn’t have room for in the house but would need it in the future when what we had wore out. Charles loves to sew and work on the canvas sails to our little sailboat. He has three very nice sewing machines plus an old Pfaff for heavy cotton applications. No room in the storage room, no room in the barn, no room in the container. He purchased a wooden building from the rent to own place. Fabric, thread, machines, work table, all the metal hardware, hammers, needles,
and everything he needs plus a propane heater inherited from my mother. Perfect. Both of us love to read. The books
we read we can’t find in the library and Radford University Library is about 1 hour and 15 minutes away. We found on line used books that were cheap. Charles likes books about the Romans. I like piano music books (I never have enough),
local and Virginia history, plant books, dog books, how to books, and cookbooks. The 640 square foot house was not made to hold books. It has a bedroom with necessary furniture needed for sleeping and dressing, a bathroom, a whirlpool bathtub room for our arthritis aches and pains, a galley kitchen, a living room with Blondie’s chair (my 13 year old standard
apricot poodle, breast cancer survivor, rabbit chaser, ratter, and mud hole roller) and my piano room. Charles has one side for his writing desk and my old baby grand is on the other with the canned food shelves in the rear. No room for books. My turn to purchase a storage building for the books now neatly unlabeled in paper boxes plus two inlay tables that were such a good deal I couldn’t turn down. All is fine. I really want an outside kitchen like I had when I lived in North Carolina. They are great to do the messy work like cutting up pork and preparing vegetable and canning. I found a really good deal on a four burner commercial gas stove. It is in my brother’s ware house.
Well, I guess I’ll have to start looking around for a good deal on an building that I can use———–.
Just think of all the treasures my children will have when Charles and I have passed away that they and their families can remember us by!
Take care,
Kathy Patterson
Proud to be from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Appalachia
Good thing he kept that cable! That was a good thought you finding them pipes and you thinking your Pap was letting you know he was proud of y’all for taking good care of Granny. I imagine he really is and he’s watching out for all of y’all.
I have a bunch of stuff I may need! My father and my father-in-law grew up during the depression. My father-in-law kept many things, including empty jelly jars just in case he needed them. My father, however had a completely different way of looking at things; if he did not use it he would throw it away. We still still have my father-in-law’s house and it is full of things he kept just in case. Cleaning out my father’s house when we sold it was very easy to do! I know one day my children will be very upset with me for all the stuff I have in the house just in case! Dennis Morgan
Tipper, off subject here, but I have a few questions- 1) How long will your canned beans, tomatoes, meat etc last? 2) I love the taste of blackberries, but hate the seeds. How do you get the seeds out when making cobblers etc? (3 A few Summers back I grew 2 gorgeous healthy looking tomatoes plants in huge pots, but they didn’t produce but about 2 tomatoes on each plant & those tomatoes didn’t get much bigger than a golf ball & were no good. I think they were Better Boy tomatoes. Do you know why such beautiful tomato plants didn’t produce? I have a large backyard, but can’t plant directly in the soil since my house was built on an old dumping site. 4). Do you think growing bags like you have shown us would be better to plant in that large pots and what would be good to grow in those bags? As you can tell, I don’t have experience as a gardener. Thanks!
Cheryl-Canned vegetables last several years if kept in a dry cool area. For cobblers we eat the seeds too 🙂 I do strain them out to make jelly. Hard to say about your tomatoes. Some years are better than others and it might have been the weather or the soil. I love our grow bags but I’m not sure they’re any better than large pots-although they are cheaper 🙂
I have thirty-five years of “Stuff” I may need someday!
Oh, Tipper! What a nice husband you have!! I’m sure it made the mail ladies day to get hauled out, AND the Deer Hunter backed her car down the drive for her. Yep, he’s a nice man!!
The trick is to know the good stuff from the bad stuff, what to hold on to & what you need to let go.
I meant to say 75-100 ft cable with one connected to winch.
My shop and storage barn are full of “might need this one day”. I learned this from my father and grandfather. They wouldn’t throw away a 6″ piece of rusty hay wire.
We never throw out cables, chains or ropes. They don’t take up much room hanging on nails and we always find uses for them. Now that broken leg child’s table is another story. It was hauled off to the dump last week.
Oh yea, this sounds just like my Grandaddy and he taught me the same way, to not get rid of STUFF lol. and it drives my wife Robbie Lynn crazy sometimes. The way he and I looked at it is, that we might need the stuff we kept someday or someone else might need it and that has proved to have been the case more times than not. Glad Mr. Matt had it to free the mail lady lol and I bet she’s glad he didn’t throw it away now as well.
Might come in handy for some but will come in handy to a handy man or a handy woman.
I figure that single use justified keeping it all the years.
i drove into a ditch once on a private drive leading fromcabin in brasstown. all of a sudden the side of the narrow road wasn’t where it had been and i wedged the front of the car right into it. i had no clue what to do and then another car came by and they called their dad and then got me out. i love brasstown! 😉
LOL!!!!
What a great story. It seems like when you do throw something away is when you end up needing it. We do keep stuff more than we throw away. My husband holds on to all kinds of gadgets ,me I hold on to sentimental belongings. I still have all my son’s childhood books. I told him when he has children he can have the books or they can stay at my house where the grandchildren can read when they visit. He is getting married March 2023 in Sevierville, TN. I think that might be somewhat close to where you live. I finally did throw away some of his participation trophies. My son said Mom we can’t save all these trophies. I agreed and only kept the ones that he or his team actually won . The Deer Hunter is very handy . I’m lucky my husband is also handy . The Deer Hunter saved the day !
Seems it always happens, the day you throw something away, you need it. But your commenter John R is also correct. I wouldn’t find it until I didn’t need it anymore. Dear Hunter must be more tidy than me. Love that you saw the pipes in the tree – thanks for a new place to stick my stuff – hadn’t thought of using trees. Are you planning on putting your mailbox down on the ‘big’ road now?
Mary-our mailbox is actually down on the state road, but our mail lady is so nice she will bring packages that don’t fit to us 🙂
I’m like John R, I do that all the time and then when I really need it cannot find it.
My husband held on to everything and if I threw something away you can be sure I would need it the next week. Still I hold on to way too much stuff. Although I probably would not think at my age I would use that choker cable, I do know how much help that could be for someone so I probably would have held on to it too for a relative or neighbor to use.
Your blackberry dumplings brought back memories of my Grandmother’s kitchen and her wonderful delicious Blackberry Pie. I’ve enjoyed dumplings before, but her Blackberry Pie was covered with sweet mouth-watering pastry, lots of juice underneath that golden pastry, and a few dumplings in the juice. I absolutely LOVED the juice with the pie crust. Best combination I have ever tasted. Sad thing is I was a kid and in later years didn’t think to ask for the recipe but I will never forget the wonderful taste:) Looking at the blackberry juice you cooked, I bet she cooked hers like that then poured it into a 9 X 12 pan, put her pie pastry on top and baked it golden brown or maybe she used her canned Blackberries. One of those questions, I wish I had asked.
I absolutely love that story. Sounds so much the way I was taught. My Dad decided to help me once using a riding lawn mower which I never used because my yard sloped too much. Well, he turned it over on the patio, and by a miracle was not injured. As he sized up the situation, he asked me if I had a “come along.’’ I had no clue, and so did not have one. He said, “I cannot believe you don’t have a come along.” Always respectful of my dad I got ready to go get one from Advance Auto. Justness for fun I asked about 5 customers if they had ever heard of a come along. Nobody had. I actually got one, but by the time I got home my brother in law had pulled out the lawn mower. That old come along hung on a nail for years, and I finally gave it to my brother in law. Not sure if that was just an old name for something. Love how knowledgeable and inventive our Appalachia men are.
True story. Just threw away the cord to an old landline, and I needed it this week.
Your story makes me think of Jeremiah 29:11. God makes all things new
There’s so much unidentified stuff hanging in my sheds and barns that friends and family are always asking me if I have this or that. I just turn them loose to explore. My girls don’t want anything they are not currently using. If they have two of something, they get rid of one of them. I’m bad for buying things at yard sales and thrift stores that I know good and well I won’t use but somebody might…someday.
I think it’s wise and frugal to hang on to items that could be of use at some point. Your story about the mail lady certainly proves this point! I’m space limited so what I hang on to has to be special. I have a small shed and spare room off the house- that’s it! So there’s that. But to any and all who have space and are willing, I say collect it ALL, baby!!!! The way things are going, we may need it sooner than later! It may just be me knocking to ask for something! Lol and a friend in need is a friend indeed!
My husband does the same thing !! The only problem he usually can’t remember where he put whatever it is when someone needs it . HaHaHa
If he had thrown it away 20 years ago, he would have needed it every year since, and may have bought another one!
I totally understand…I have “stuff” I don’t get rid of because I might need it at some point … from my experience, almost every time I get rid of something that I have not used or needed in years , I will need it soon after I get rid of it ..ha…
I grew up hearing if you finally threw something away you would need it soon after.
that has always been the case for me.
Put to good use, and I’m sure the Mail Lady was happy to have Matt get her unstuck!
Well, that old choker cable finally earned its place in your basement. Things like that can sure come in handy. I’ve got a lot of “maybe” or “just in case” stuff in the basement and shed. I even have a few short lengths of chain hung on a tree behind the shed. You just never know! No doubt, the mail lady was very grateful for the assistance.
I think thay must be in the male dna, my husband, father, and both my sons do the same thing. I don’t remember them coming in hanfy though.
LOL…I am so glad to see others doing the same thing my Hubby and I do. My daughters will look at things we have and I can just hear them say ‘what are you gonna do with that’…and one day when that is used, they will look at each other and do the ‘smile’ all kids do. We do have a few of those ‘straps’ and I am sure one day. I also bet the mail lady was happy Matt had those straps. Way to go Pap and Matt. The Dumplin’ s and Blackberries looked awesome, gonna try that this weekend. Have Blessed one.
I can relate to this! So many people are into the thought that if you haven’t used something in a year, get rid of it. The couple of times I have followed that rule, shortly after I got rid of something, I needed it. So I had to go buy a new one. I don’t hold onto everything, but the things that would have to be ordered, are better quality than what’s made today (isn’t that pretty much everything?), costs a little bit to replace (as in more than $10), or that are old and they simply don’t make them anymore – I keep. These things are tools to help around the house, repair supplies, kitchen gadgets, etc. you just never know when you will need it, and it never fails – it’s always right after you got rid of it. I don’t like going to the store (I only go when I really need something), and I don’t have the patience to wait for something I bought online to come in the mail (when I decide I want to buy something, I want it in my hands now), so my house is not full of a lot of extra stuff. But what I do have, I keep in good condition so it can be used when needed. My Dad has a truck yard with several buildings that he stores all of the things he may need someday – like all the things your Dad kept around. My Dad owns quite a few houses he rents out, so he has everything you can think of that you might need to repair houses and appliances – all that he removed from older appliances and saved, or different lengths of pipe, wiring, etc. I do miss living next to my parents – I never had to call a repairman or go to Home Depot. I just called my Dad. I still call him now, except there is a bit of traveling to do between San Diego and North Carolina! My brother, Paul, helps my Dad with his property management, and he does excellent work. I keep telling him I am going to hire him to come out and fix everything in my house that needs work! – except all the tools and supplies he would need to do any work would be out in San Diego. Sigh. I did enjoy your post!
Donna. : )
Sounds like us, but with my luck I wouldn’t be able to find the cable. Then I’d see it a week later!
I”ve got multiples of many things for that very reason, John. I know I’ve got a thing but the ‘storage’ is so dense I can’t find it and have to get another one. 🙂
I see the wisdom in that, ya never know when it might be needed, so hang on to it!
And I personally have kept something for years and someone spotted it & inquired if they have it. And then, weeks or even days later, the need became apparent for an emergency came up. My daughter calls it hoarding. But the ‘hoarding’ was a blessing when one Christmas morning we awoke to no water. We had an unexpected freeze during the night and a pipe up at the pump caused a geyser. What plumber comes out on Christmas morning or what hardware store will open when the world is hibernating inside making memories for spending all their $$?
Anyway, the Christmas morning, day & weekend were all saved of discomfort from a basket of leftover pvc parts.
I am the world’s worst about holding on to things. I am with the Deer Hunter, there is no way I would throw that choker cable away. I can think of a lot of times it would come in handy when using it to drags logs and other things with my tractor.
Randy, I did exactly that with my old choker cable. I had found an immense fat lighter log from an old pine that had once stood on a property line. I had sawed it into five sections before dragging it home with my tractor. We moved away and left it when we downsized.
Gene, I cut pulpwood at one time in my life when it was still cut with a chainsaw (most everyone used a bow chainsaw) into 5ft lengths. The old truck we used had a boom and a homemade winch 75-100 ft long with one end connected to the winch and the other end had a loop. We had chain hook that would slide along the cable and you would wrap cable around a bundle of the pulpwood sticks and hook the hook in the loop and drag the wood to the truck. It worked just like the choke cable above except you eliminated sliding one end of cable through loop on the other end. The winch is another story, made out of rear car brake drum and master cylinder. God had to be watching over us to keep us from getting hurt with this winch. I think hard work like this is the mother of redneck engineering!