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Serial #0025 

North Wind Mirror

Like an old chore coat, the north wall of the barn on the Bucher place in Lipscomb County, Texas has patches on patches. Unfortunately, there is not much of the old siding underneath that will hold a nail, so the fall and winter northers always manage to work a tin patch or two loose and send them flying into the corral or points further south. Gathered up and tossed into the granary, the patches added up, too fine in their rich rust and cattle-rubbed patina to throw away.

Patched back together, the scraps now frame the North Wind Mirror. Blue and red baseboard from Charlie Lynch’s house in Lipscomb trims out the frame. And frame corner brackets once braced gangs of grain sieves that ran along the pan in the straw-walker section of an old