I finally figured it out... American youth today.

G.Moll,
Well done with that forge. I'm 56 and I can't say I'm very far ahead of you in knife-making.
 
G.Moll said:
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those are a couple of the knives ive made in the forge, and im working on a tomahawk head out of a ball peen hammer. Anyways I may not have an official hay barn or anything like Tyler does across the street, but I have a barn of sorts.
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Now, that's cool!
 
What i've noticed is the extreme overprotectiveness of parents towards their kids these days. If you watching the show House Hunters, parents looking for houses reject houses because the patio is concrete and their child might fall, or the lawn is slanted at a slight angle and their kids might fall down. We are raising a generation of kids who will be afraid of their own shadow.

There are exceptions, of course. I only note this as a trend.
 
Talfuchre said:
I think kids actually miss having Pyramids around them.

"We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently inhabit taverns and have no self control." -- attributed to an inscription in an Ancient Egyptian tomb, quoted in Buckminster Fuller's I Seem To Be a Verb

It seems that Adam and Eve said 'kids these days'.

TF
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No kidding. Another one of "those damn kids!" rants. A recurring thing amongst people of a certain age no matter where or when they are. You think the younger generation would have blown up the world by now given how terrible they are. ;)
 
Shotgun said:
No kidding. Another one of "those damn kids!" rants. A recurring thing amongst people of a certain age no matter where or when they are. You think the younger generation would have blown up the world by now given how terrible they are. ;)
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And if you are lucky and listen more to your elders, you'll live long enough to talk about how things once were. If not... :p
 
Haha I am 15 and couldn't agree anymore with hat you said, I go to school and always just laugh in my head about how people around me act. Its just ridiculous sometimes. Girls yell at teachers, then their moms do to. I mean cmon right? If you did something wrong you get punished, there isnt any way around it!
 
One thing for sure is that things change. I have seven granddaughters and a grandson now. And I pray every day that they will grow up to be good, happy people. I don't expect them to repeat my experiences because I have no farm to offer them and even if I did, we live in a different world than I experienced back then. Which was a far different world than my father grew up in, and likewise his father. But if I could, I'd give them all a country barn to play in. And my discourse was not intended to belittle today's youth. Just to wish that they could enjoy something that is quickly passing into history.
 
Shotgun said:
No kidding. Another one of "those damn kids!" rants. A recurring thing amongst people of a certain age no matter where or when they are. You think the younger generation would have blown up the world by now given how terrible they are. ;)
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And most who complain about the younger generation are of the generation that reared the younger generation. Truth be told, we (my generation) are handing off a mess to the younger generation. Thankfully, from what I've seen, they have it in them to correct some of the crap we're leaving them.
 
The "Barn Theory" was pretty good, but it's wrong.
It's all about flint knives...I never see anyone carrying flint knives anymore.
That's the problem. ;)
 
We didn't start the fire. The fire's been burning since the world's been turning. My father fought the second world war at age 16. He didn't start it. My generation fought the Vietnam war and we didn't start that one. And so it goes. Each generation has to face the world as they find it when they grow up. Blaming someone else for what "is" is a losing game. Instead, work to make things better when you can. One day at a time.
 
Well, I can't speak for America's youth because I didn't grow up in America alone. I spent the first half of my childhood in Newquay, England, which has a lot of farms and cool old churches in them. My school that I went to only had 20 kids total, come to think of it I think It was a Catholic private school. Which would explain why just over the wall and was a very, very old church in which we would go catch slow worms in. I spent a lot of time there outside riding horses & bikes, jumping off of rocks into the ocean, running around town, and picking fights with goats. I was even welcomed in the pubs to play pool and darts without my parents with me. I mean the town was so safe that my parents would let me go to the beach, the store, pubs, the canals, the stables, etc... all without them. What has happened to those small towns? the ones in my area where everybody knows everybody are quite rude, not to mention that there is a local KKK chapter in the town, I think its one the biggest in Virginia. That tells me that any townspeople who would put up with that kind of ignorance is not a good place.
 
Reflecting on the farm experience ... hide and seek in the loft over the top of the piled bales ... childhood machinations of spontaneous combustion - wow ... teaching your dog to climb the ladder to the loft .... making way for the 'barn dance' commemorating the school year end ... dodging the horns of an irritated heifer ... lime clean up after the 'surgeries' ... compartmentalizing the animal distress ... sprinkling warm molasses over the year's harvest of unappetising hay ... barn cats! ... keeping your fingers out of the gears on the litter carrier ... hoof avoidance ... clearing manure-stopped drains and proud to help out (smile on your face even up to your elbows in it) ... rising earliest, working to latest energy ... accomplishment and satisfaction in caring for livestock or in the successful crop ... how, oh how, to rid the barn smell from your nostrils and your clothing before getting on the bus to high school! Sound, insightful prep for the learning curve that is life. Much like learning the language of 'land on your feet'.
 
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Codger_64 said:
Got a mouse in your pocket? Sorry but I don't play the blame game.
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The blame is for those who try to blame the younger generation for its ills. Those who blame the younger generation should first look in the mirror to blame the generation that raised the younger generation. If the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it. If it does,...
 
Codger_64 said:
Like the title says, I finally figured out what is wrong with American youth today. Barns. Or rather the lack thereof. Few kids are growing up on farms these days and as much as I look, I don't see barns in the cities, though occasionally one is stll standing near a new subdivision where a farm once was. So kids don't have access to barns...


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Yep. No barns. That is what is wrong with kids these days.

Michael
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Let us not mention the things bad boys did behind the barn. It started with smoking corn silk and went downhill from there.
 
FullyTorque said:
I had a lot of adventures in and around the old barn on the small (tiny) farm where I grew up. Ofcourse as I got older it became less fun and more work.
Seeing those hay loft bays in the pics above reminded me of my summers spent throwing hay. Loading and unloading square-bale hay is diabolical.
Here's rundown.
1. The hay is cut, dried, and then baled in a huge field and left in nice rows about 10yrds apart. If you have a truly evil guy in the baler he will pack them a little green or extra tight so they're extra dense and heavy.
2. Grandpa drives the truck with a long trailer and guys (sons, grandsons, cousins, and friends... no paid workers here) walk along the side of the trailer and throw the bales up to guys on the trailer to catch and stack. You want to be on the trailer as much as possible, because as time goes by the pile gets higher and you have to throw the bales higher. And grandpa is gonna keep that trailer moving fast enough to keep you jogging from bale to bale. But eventually you get the trailer loaded to the point where the old farm truck is barely able to pull it.
3. Now you get to take it back to the barn and unload it. Yay. This is easy at first cause the trailer is stacked so high that the first layer or two might be above the barn loft. But then as you get lower on the stack you have to throw higher and higher up to the barn.
Also remember this is summer in the south where the temp is 100F and the humidity is 100%. Also you're covered in sweat, dirt, dust and hay seeds within the first thirty minutes. Evil Evil hay.
But by the end of summer you were in great shape for football practice.
I do miss the old barn.
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Been there. Done that. I got paid for it though.

Stacking in the barn, leave room for a fist between bales to discourage spontaneous combustion.
 
Talfuchre said:
I think kids actually miss having Pyramids around them.

"We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently inhabit taverns and have no self control." -- attributed to an inscription in an Ancient Egyptian tomb, quoted in Buckminster Fuller's I Seem To Be a Verb

It seems that Adam and Eve said 'kids these days'.

TF
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Kids!
I don't know what's wrong with these kids today!
Kids!
Who can understand anything they say?
Kids!
They a disobedient, disrespectful oafs!
Noisy, crazy, dirty, lazy, loafers!

While we're on the subject:

Kids!
You can talk and talk till your face is blue!
Kids!
But they still just do what they want to do!
Why can't they be like we were,
Perfect in every way?
What's the matter with kids today?
 
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