On the Farm
A silo cap-turned-clock reminds a farming family of hard work and good times.
A silo cap gets a new job.
While gathering items for an upcoming family wedding, an interesting object on her parents’ central Utah farm caught Pam Hathaway’s eye.
“It was an old cap from the top of one of my parents’ grain silos,” she says. “It must have blown off during a storm and was laying in the weeds near the farm’s machine shop. Who knows how long it had been there.”
Pam studied the cap, thinking how it reminded her of a large pocket watch. “The edges were fluted and its flat surface made me think of a clockface,” she says.
She also loved that it was part of the family farm’s history.
“My parents still live on their 100-acre property, and it’s still being farmed. I remember those two silos from my childhood days. First we watched them being filled with grain, then we nine children used that grain to feed our chickens and livestock. More recently, my brother, who now farms the land, used a silo as a lambing shed. The silo cap captured all those memories in one place.”
Not yet knowing what to do with the cap, Pam took it to the main home on the farm where she lives and cares for her aging parents, Jim and Virginia Porter. “Christmas was coming, and I wondered if I could upcycle the old silo cap in a way that would be both memorable and useful.”
Then Pam realized it could
become an outsize clock face.
“It was easy to imagine. The cap looked like a pocket watch initially, so it wasn’t too far of a stretch to see it as a wall clock.”
With the idea in hand, it was time to recruit others to help. “My sons live nearby, so they cleaned up the cap and installed the clock mechanism. We left the paint on the cap just as it was: a weathered mix of yellow, silver and mostly red. I thought the colors were really lovely and
made the cap a real heirloom.”
Pam’s daughter-in-law, who is an artist, painted numbers on the clock in freehand and added the words “Porter Farms” for a personal flair.
Pam’s parents loved their Christmas surprise. The clock now hangs in a place of pride above the fireplace in Jim and Virginia’s farmhouse kitchen.
“It’s a family heirloom,” Pam says. “And that’s just what I was hoping it would turn out to be.”