The Country: Where Sayings Come From
I am starting to realize just how many “sayings” come from the country. When you’re in the city and get the trash picked up every week you don’t think much about where that trash goes, except perhaps going so far as to separate your recycleables. I just posted on the Carroll County Freecycle website about some moving boxes that I’d like to give away. I found myself typing, “we’ll be taking them to the dump if nobody wants them, but I hate to see them go to waste.”
…”go to waste”. Now I see the literal meaning there. It is quite obvious (to be hauled off to the waste dump) but I just never really thought about it until now. These boxes will literally be “going to the waste” dump. I am suddenly hyperaware of this fact because it is I who will be taking them. I remember Mary writing about it on her blog when she lived here.
But that is not the only saying I’ve come to realize in literal terms. Here are a few others that have taken on a new – or rather OLD – meaning for us:
- Your chickens have come home to roost
- Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
- I can’t read that chicken scratch
- Barking up the wrong tree
(after talking to some ‘coon-hunters)
- Establish a pecking order
- No spring chicken
- Reap what you sow
(I’m not going to reap anything because I haven’t had time to sow it!)
- For the birds
(as in that bowl of cereal that’s been sitting out all night is…)
- Feeling cooped up
- Counting your chickens before they hatch
- Fly off the handle
(Like when you swing an ax and the top goes flying into the creek)
- Don’t get your feathers ruffled.
- Mending fences
(the opposite of burning bridges)
- Fly the coop
- Good fences make good neighbors
- To ‘buy the farm’
- An apple never falls far from the tree
… and there’s plenty more where those came from, but we just haven’t gotten to them yet. Sometimes sayings take on whole new meanings. Where once we might have been referring to a field of grain shocks, now we’re talking about ambiguity…
but we all know it’s not as “cut and dried” as that.
Related posts:
Category: Simple Thoughts, The Transplants
We believe that humankind has lost some important things in the march toward progress. That is not to say progress and simplicity are mutually exclusive. We believe we can have both, and this site catalogs our journey as we try to do exactly that.
The Transplants
TreeStone Farm
The Old-Timers
Why are you giving away those boxes? You can use them as mulch or as the weed-kill layer for new raised beds!
Anna,
Unfortunately I don’t think we’re going to get a lot of gardening done this year. Our first year in the place seems to be the year of fixing up the house and outbuildings. I will definitely get some trees into the ground this fall and do some pruning… maybe plant a fall garden. But there is simply too much to do on and in the house right now to handle a full scale garden.
Awww, maybe I’ll go ahead and throw some seeds in the ground and let them fend for themselves.
If I know where the garden is going to go next year should I put the cardboard down there now to kill everything off?
Hey Everette,
Found your blog several weeks ago and love the fact your are living the dream! Just wanted to share my little garden with you, because a small garden may be what you need as the stress of your chore list gets longer-lol. After all there is nothing better that a nice juicy summer tomato! I live in NC and the last 3 yrs I have had a straw bale garden. So check it out, great way to recycle the cardboard and your garden can be ready in 1 months time with just a little prep. So take a look at my blog under labels click on straw bale and see how easy it is to start up. If you have questions, shoot me an email and I’ll help you anyway I can. Good luck with the farm, I’ll be looking forward to your progress. And BTW, I’m originally from WVA and have passed through Hillsville a many a time on the old turnpike. Love the area!
I love your blog! I am voluntarily simplifying also. But, I won’t be moving to the country, unless you believe Texas to be the country, LOL.
Good luck with the move.
[...] have it in them anymore (huh, I guess I meant that literally as well as figuratively. Remember the farm sayings post?) but my guess is that it’s a combination of all three, although I haven’t found [...]
Heh, since moving to our place I’ve learned all about the futility of “pushing shit uphill”
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