“The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man.” – T.S. Eliot.
The Boyer YL Ranch proper sits on about 100 acres at the end of the county-maintained road on the banks of the Savery Creek. A portion of the old Main House was built in 1905 with several additions over the years. Throughout the property are various buildings in varying degrees of habitability spanning numerous eras of the Boyer family. One of those buildings was George Boyer’s old garden shed.
The shed sat in front of a portion of George’s old house, the hen house as it was remembered. The trees, grass, and nature reclaimed the hen house over the past two decades with little left of the place. Yet, the garden shed stood solid in waist-high grass until June 2020. That summer, a “derecho,” a straight-line windstorm, tore through the valley, uprooting over 17 trees on the property and taking down hundreds of large branches. One of those branches landed squarely on the garden shed, damaging the roof. That’s when I knew the shed needed to be saved, and it was perfect for a Little Free Library.
When I lived in Las Vegas for a minute back in 2020, my girlfriend and I would walk her dogs around the neighborhood, and her neighbor around the corner had a Little Free Library. It was the first one I saw up close and personal, and I loved the concept. It was simple. I love books. As a kid, I loved to read Clifford the Big Red Dog and my favorite, The Beaver Pond by Alvin Tresselt. Then it was Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew. By the time I hit high school, reading had taken a back seat as sports, music, work, and friends took center stage. By the time I hit my 20s and 30s, business and motivational books filled my shelves.
Then, I moved to Rwanda. When people say they don’t have time to read, it’s because they have a television. There was no television in Rwanda, only books. My nights were spent lying in bed, with no electricity with my headlamp shining onto the page of whatever book I could get my hands on. Books were almost nonexistent in Rwanda. When you don’t have access to books, it’s incredible how much you want a book.
Since 2009 I have read hundreds of books literally. I’ve read to learn about new countries, the cultures I lived within, how to navigate relationships, what makes people tick, what made me tick. Those books over the past 12 years changed me inextricably. As I read, I collected. Libraries didn’t exist in Rwanda when I first arrived. All of us expatriates living in Musanze read and shared what we had. Hauling books in suitcases with space already claimed by our respective employers (and bottles of good wine) proved a test of weighing, reweighing, and reshuffling. The library of books that remained when I departed Rwanda filled an entire eight-shelf bookcase.
I own a Kindle, but it is not my reading modus operandi. I like books, covers, pages, ink on paper, books. I like libraries but prefer to purchase books because I mark dog-ear pages and often break bindings. I’m an owner, not a renter. Consequently, since returning home, I continue to accumulate books and have few to share books with where I live. I started putting books in my Airbnb cabins, and people began to ask if they could take a book they started reading while staying in their cabin. I give away all books. If you read it, it’s yours. Just read.
Hence, the idea for my own garden shed turned Little Free Library was born.
Unbeknownst to me, a scheming group of dear friends, led by my husband, devised a plan to salvage the garden shed. They placed it on a trailer to move around the ranch, all in time for my birthday this past June. When I rolled up on the back of my husband’s motorcycle the afternoon of June 11th, there it was, out of the weeds, on a trailer and ready to be rehabbed.
I spent the rest of the summer tearing off the broken roofing, shoring up the corners, and replacing bats. I put on a new roof (done by my husband because I’m afraid of heights). We also replaced windows, built shelves, and painted the inside in all sorts of crazy colors. In the process, I learned to nail properly, use three different kinds of saws (keeping all my digits intact), and have a meltdown while trying to build an intricate (for me) shelving system. By October, the garden shed became the Little Free Library, Charter #130297.
It is the big box store of Little Free Libraries. Most Little Free Libraries are more like large cabinets, some in funky locations or built out of tree stumps or other unique venues. I have not seen an LFL quite as big as the garden shed LFL, but more books need more space, and there’s more to read.
As I look around the world and interact with my fellow humans, I immediately know who is well-read and who reads only social media. Reading allows one to expand their vocabulary, gain a wide range of knowledge, and think analytically. I read books that challenge my perspective and my biases. I can spot propaganda and spin almost instantly. Whether that’s an intuitive trait or hypersensitivity, who knows. I do know that either way, I have an arsenal of facts, statistics, and the emotional intelligence garnered from hundreds of thousands of pages read on a diversity of subjects. This is what reading gives individuals and society. Harry Truman said, “Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.”
Take a book, share a book, enjoy a book at the Boyer YL Ranch Little Free Library!
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