“Thee are nails everywhere.”
That statement has been repeated seemingly dozens of times over the past several weeks. Then, there’s usually a follow-up comment: “I picked up ten nails today.”
An accumulation on the back porch verifies the nail pickup, and a five-gallon bucket has a lot of nails in it, too.
As roofers and tin carpenters we’ve talked about previously have removed old roofing and siding, rusty nails have scattered all over the barnyard.
And, there are still literally thousands of nails in the discarded tin in several piles, guaranteeing the problem is going to continue.
Seems like there should be a better way to remove the old before replacing with new, so there wouldn’t be spread of the hazardous aftermath. But, we’ve had different crews doing the work, and the debris spread was no different from one to the next.
Adding to compilation are lots of “new nails,” for what reason even harder to understand.
Lots and lots of nails of every size, shape, condition, along with washers, bolts, screws, tin trimmings, insulation pieces and about anything else one can think of, or even imagine, from a restoration project have been picked up by hand.
Then, the all-around carpenter borrowed a nail-picker-upper and spent an extended time pushing it around. A magnet attracted the menagerie of steel pieces to it, and had to be cleared off every few minutes.
There are literally pounds and pounds of nails in the bucket now, and the machine pusher contended: “You can go over the yard again several times, and find more. Then, if you rake, there’ll be even more.”
Our real concern is the future damage. Already, a couple of flat tires have been blamed on the “nails.”
Even more concerning is the horses getting nails in their feet. Over the years, we’ve had a number of nails get in horses’ feet, always causing lameness. Sometimes, even after the nails have been removed, there is long term recovery from infection.
No matter what we try to do right, some problem always arises.
Reminds us of First Chronicles 22:3: “There was an abundance of nails from the barn,” and Second Chronicles 3:9: “The weight of the nails was fifty shekels.” Then, Matthew 3:12: “He’s going to make a clean sweep of the trash.” Because, Job 35:15: “We have to do something about the problems.”
+++ALLELUIA+++
