AMY KIRK: Junk yard wars between rancher, wife

• Amy Kirk

Amy Kirk

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What’s considered reusable junk is in the eye of the rancher or his wife. I recently hauled home some stuff from our junk yard and their presence wasn’t well received by the junk yard manager.

My husband and I have different opinions of what’s considered worthy junk. He didn’t see the decorating potential that I did in the metal buckets with holes, rusty bed frames, dry-rotted tire, grime-covered tool box, and rusty rake wheel that I dragged up to the house for the yard.

Distressed-looking décor is really in right now and since our outfit is well aged, brand new décor just doesn’t fit in with the overall “look” of the place. I’m sure my girlfriends would agree that the resurrected junk I found would add charm to the place’s overall appearance. (Though I’m still mulling ideas for the rusty bedpan I saw.)

My husband didn’t want the bent up machinery parts I planned to incorporate into my flowerbed to become the conversation pieces with visitors that I thought they would be perfect for. I handpicked junk I thought would add character to our yard but my husband disliked my interest in junk he’d hauled away for a reason and had a different vision; one in which I took it back to the junk pile. Their existence in the front yard was embarrassing to him, which I completely understood. His lack of imagination of my junk’s potential is similar to the way I’ve felt about some past shop projects.

What started my junkhauling frenzy were clever ideas I found on the fast growing virtual pinboard site called Pinterest. Seeing what other people did with rubbish I’ve spotted in our junk and burn piles inspired me to retrieve a bunch of junk for sprucing up the place.

Since my husband’s always telling me there’s one of everything around here, I decided to go find some of them before he decides to haul off the good stuff and cash in on the current scrap metal market. Due to my nonexistent decorating budget, a lot of our décor is either welded or hand-picked from our redneck Home Depot. There’s an ample supply of décor in our junk yard, all I have to do is add imagination.

Using my creativity suits my decorating style because I like one-of-a-kind and unusual stuff and have found the best selection of oddities in our own dump. Old items that have been aged, weathered, and distressed, ties in quite well with my personality and our lifestyle.

Parting out old machinery and reusing scrap materials to build something useful for our ranch’s needs or to make existing equipment operable again is my husband’s idea of useful junk. The stuff he’s dragged to the shop I would’ve considered for the crusher, and have made the grave mistake of mentioning before. The junk I suggested for a scrap metal cash crop my husband adamantly pointed out are renewable parts and resources for future projects yet to be dreamt up.

Either way, my husband can be grateful because my decorating style is a win-win for him. My décor style saves him money or makes him money because all those women on Pinterest who’ve caught onto the trend of repurposing old junk are helping drive up the price for scrap metal.

Amy Kirk and her husband raise their two kids on a fourth-generation cow/calf operation near Pringle. She blogs at ranchwifeslant.areavoices.com.

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