Well actually I did, but only for my own use. Laid a few slabs, nothing pretty but they worked just fine. As far as I know, at least one is still there, even thought the barn and horse breaking pen are long gone.
Now for the rest of the story. Brenda and I purchased a briar patch with a sorta house and an all but useless barn on 3 acres for $3250.00 in December 1973. After several years work, buying more land and continuing to improve it down through the years, we made it a pretty decent place. Nothing to brag about but nothing to be terribly ashamed of either (except for my barn, which was really bad, but it worked and the horses we stabled in it and trained won a dump truck load of trophy’s and ribbons)
Creosote boards and posts, square and round were quite common back then, lasted quite a while, were a decent color, did not have to be painted and generally were good material to build rail fences. I fenced in the home, made a breaking pen, generally put the stuff everywhere. However, I needed a wash rack and putting one in the barn was not going to work. So, I put one off of the breaking pen. poured my own concrete pad, fenced it in but used crossties instead of creosoted 4x4’s.
Got nice siding on the house, got the inside fixed up, insulated, put in a good wood stove, got nice shrubs planted around the house, cleaned up all the underbrush, fenced it in with the above mentioned 4x4’s and 1x6 rail fences. Looked pretty nice.
But alas, we came to the realization that our son‘s asthma would not tolerate being on a horse farm, and we were losing something north of $500.00 a month each month, after our customers (what few they were) paid us. Since our income was simply not that good especially considering what we were paid in the late 1980’s/early 1990’s, it was time to move on in our life.
So, we sold the farm and built a little cottage on a lake.
.
Subsequent owners treated it like it originally was, a shack. Brenda and I visited it about 10 years ago. Living therewas the 4th or 5th owner of it since we sold it in 1992. Seeing the condition of the place, Brenda said, she never ever even wanted to ride down Highway 151 again, much less go back to visit our old homeplace.
Finally, been on the lake for 30 years now, not gonna leave, even though it’s right at 100 miles from Howard Prince Memorial range, the best range in North Louisiana.
Oh, I‘ve done a bit more concrete since then, but nothing to brag about, that is for sure.
Now, I’m gonna call it a night, before I really make someone mad with my stupid humor.