On a farm, you learn to improvise and innovate, or you go broke and leave. There is never enough money on any real farm to do all of the things you need to do. The farmers who survive learn to innovate. Like anyone with animals, gates and fences are important to us, and if you live in the cold climates, as we do, you are always thinking about icy gates in the winter.

There are few things more disturbing than coming out to a pasture gate in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning and finding the gate latch covered with ice. Curiously, no one I know seems to have found a solution to this problem, I often go outside with a pot of boiling water to melt the frozen rain and frost on a gate.

People with farms are used to adapting, they limit their trips to the hardware store and calls to the vet. Our friend Ken Norman put this miraculous new latch on our gate, but we were still stymied about the rain. Maria, who has turned out to be a true farm pioneer woman, came up with this idea: cutting up a used peanut butter jar and screwing it over the gate latch.

We didn’t figure this would last too long, but after two weeks, it’s looking good. This morning, a freezing rain and the gate latch was completely dry. And it was a lot cheaper than calling somebody to build one. I am sure somebody makes latch covers somewhere, I saw one or two on Amazon. This was better. I married well.