Necessity causes inventions

I walked into the bathroom the other day and flipped on the light switch and thought how neat there is instant light. Amazing is what it is. Amazing that there is such a thing as electricity but also that it was discovered. Also amazing that a light bulb was discovered. When some need shows up our minds begin to work overtime figuring out some way to fix the need. Back when I was little my Uncle Bertie and Aunt Johanna had coal oil lanterns. What an improvement electricity was. There are times when we build on the inventions of others. But there are also times when it is an original idea.

When we went to construct our first high tunnels we needed to use my old tractor with a loader to lift up the bows. Marge and I just couldn't do it by hand. The trouble was my loader was old and it crept down when it was up in the air. I've needed to rebuild the cylinders since we got the loader but just never took the time to do it. The loader creeps down way too fast for us to handle the bow and run the tractor. So I built a flat top that fit on top of each post to set the bow on where the loader crept down like it did. Didn't take a lot to build and didn't cost much at all but it really worked. Marge and I needed help and it filled the bill. So I built one when we started building the new high tunnel we are just getting finished. Vic said I should patent it.

As I've been thinking about needs necessitating inventions I thought about when I was really little. I just couldn't get up on Strippy which was Dad's old horse. I just couldn't get my foot high enough to get my foot in the stirrup. So I took a stirrup off another old saddle and attached it to my left stirrup with an old haimes strap. It worked. So now I'd put my right foot in the bottom stirrup and then my left foot in the next one and I was on old Strippy.

Marge's Dad did this most of his life. If a need came up he figured out something that would work. Keith needed a set of fire irons to use in his wood stove. Keith had turned an old 55 gallon barrel into a stove. He laid down the barrel and put a door on the end so it was a long ways back to the end of the barrel. .So Keith took a piece of an old garden rake, welded a handle on it and Wallah he had a rake to use in his wood stove. Works like a charm. He could have bought one but it was a lot more fun dreaming one up and then making it.

Lendy Wiggins, an old friend who passed away a couple years ago, had a particular task when they were working on metal roofs. Lendy had to remove roofing nails that had lost their lead seal and replace them with new ones. But one couldn't use a pray bar because it would dent the tin. So Lendy welded a rod on the handle of a set of vice grips. He put a heavy weight on the rod so it would move up and down. Then He welded an end on the rod. Now he could clamp the vice grips on a nail, bang the movable weight up the rod which in turn pulled the nail out. Kind of like the old nail pullers. It worked. Good idea. He had talked about getting a patent.

Years ago I used to drive out by Bolivar, Missouri, to hunt deer. I was hunting during muzzle season so normally I was alone. I usually ended up with a deer so I had to figure out how to load the deer in my pickup all alone. So I'd flip a rope up over a branch in a tree, hook one end on the deer and then use the pickup to pull the deer up in the air. After tying the rope to a tree I'd back under the deer and let it down real slow into my pickup. Not real fancy but it worked.

Don't you suppose a lot of the neat things we enjoy started out just like this. Steam engines became gas engines which eventually power our lawn mowers and cars and trucks and all the rest. But to get a car wheels had to be discovered. So did electricity. Wonder how many inventions it took to get a car?

Or a computer? If I had known about computers back when I was little and wanted to describe them to my grandparents I doubt I could. I could tell them I could talk to a friend in Denmark by pushing buttons on a keyboard my grandparents wouldn't have a clue what I was talking about. They probably would have thought I was full of hooey. But not only communicate with those in Denmark but also send pictures back and forth. Pretty awesome.

Are we as a human race this smart? I think some would say yes mankind is smart enough. Some would say mankind is brilliant. I kind of doubt it. Some would say all these natural resources just happened. I doubt this as well. Way too many things to just be by accident.

Billions of barrels of oil in the ground was created way back when. Millions of tons of coal were formed as well. Trees grow and create lumber to build homes and such. Minerals and other goodies are in our soil which in turn help plants and such to grow. Sheep grow wool which in turn can be woven into clothing. Cotton grows on plants which then becomes clothing and such. And the list goes on and on. Awesome when you think about it.

I would say a good many of us take these blessings for granted when honestly we should be really thankful.