Knarvel-mail från Minnesota

Idag fick jag ett väldigt trevligt mail från Dave's bror Dan som bor kvar och driver the Downing Farm i Minnesota vilket är barndomshemmet, och igår gick Dan runt och plåtade knarvlar som han inte ens kom ihåg fanns, och knarvlar som säkert inte har använts på bortåt 50 år.

Som Dan skriver så är världen liten idag och nätet fantastiskt:
....and to think that people can be brought together across an ocean just by the simple need to keep doors closed! :)

Dan har skrivit bildtexter till alla knarvelbilder, och texten som hör ihop med bilden ovan lyder så här:

This is what my Dad has always called a knarvel. It holds in a window (or screen in the summer). This is a window to my basement. I actually can't remember him using the term "knarvel" for any of the larger wooden ones, but maybe that's just because he never had to refer to one by name. I can remember helping him, as a child, replace the windows with screens, or vice versa, and he would ask me if I needed to use his plier to turn the knarvel. They might sometimes be stuck and hard to turn for little hands. I always assumed that he used the word as a fun made-up name, as people do for small items that they don't have a name for. For example, around here, you might go to the hardware store with some small part that you need to replace, and you don't have a name for it, so you tell the salesperson, "Do you have one of these "doohickeys?""


This is the old woodshed. We no longer burn wood, so now it mostly stores gardening supplies and tools. The small building to the left is the outhouse--unused since plumbing was installed in the house about 60 years ago. It's funny that MY outdoor toilet does NOT use a knarvel. It has a hook.




The newest knarvel on the farm. I used a simple scrap of wood for this when I started reusing this old building as a chicken coop in 2001.


This little building was a smokehouse--for smoking and preserving meat. Unused for probably 60 years.



This "lean-to" shed was added along the side of the workshop to store a tractor, when tractors started to replace horses. The door is tallest in the middle to allow the tallest part of the tractor to fit--the exhaust pipe. What a fun design! As you can see: 1. The original color of the building was red. 2. It is time for me to paint!


A small access door to the "attic." This building was built as a chicken coop for 250 hens, but has also been used to house mother and baby pigs, and is now use for storage.



A side door on the very old and in very poor condition machine shed. As you can see by the large trees growing in front of some of the doors of this building, some haven't been opened in many years. Modern machinery is much too large for any of these small doors. I now have to use only the large front openings into the shed.


Another unused door of the same shed. A double door with only one knarvel remaining.


And one more from the same shed.


This is a building that I once used to store grain for the dairy cattle. It was originally built as a chicken coop, I would guess. I think I added the bottom knarvel in 1991. The small one at the top may have kept chickens inside, once upon a time, but by itself it wasn't strong enough to hold back a pile of feed. As you can see, as a 22-year-old, I didn't take a lot of time to create a very stylish knarvel--I just nailed up a scrap of wood. : )



A door up high on the other end. Must have been a window for the chickens.


This is a photo I took last fall of the old machine shed--the one with the many unused small doors.

On behalf of my readers and myself, I would like to thank both Dave and Dan for sharing this knarvel treasure from Minnesota with us in Sweden.

Att en sån här liten träbit kan innehålla så mycket historia, det är alldeles fantastiskt tycker jag.

Och vilka gulliga brorsor i Minnesota ;)