"Making Do" / Tout faire avec rien

English: , ”Making do” with creativity: French-Acadian inventiveness, ingenuity, and lapatente , Here in the Valley, a person who can make or fix just about anything is called le patenteux in the local French. A patente is created with a minimum of fuss using available tools and materials. Usually it is very individual, made for a specific use: often "made from nothing." , In museums you can also find creative solutions to everyday challenges: Here, wood was once plentiful while metal scarce and expensive. So patenteux came up with clever and thrifty substitutes: a plow made almost entirely of wood with only an iron blade [below], water pipes made of hollowed logs [left], and other machinery with minimal iron parts. , Though materials may not be scarce today, the tradition of le patenteux lives on as Valley people still make a habit of modifying and customizing even the newest tools and equipment. , Voices of the Valley , ”La patente? It’s definitely a part of our culture! Years ago people were poor and the area was isolated so they fixed things or improvised what they needed by using leftover parts or old pieces of scrap metal.” , , Chad Pelletier, Fort Kent Historical Society, Did You Know? , Some pioneer families had wooden plumbing! These logs had the centers burned out and then were tapered at the ends to fit together. Running downhill from a stream, they would supply a home with water. Examples at Grand Isle Historical Society and Acadian Village in Van Buren. , ”Everything got modified. My dad would buy a brand new tractor and right away would have to change something. Virtually every piece of machinery on the Jalbert farm had a box, a rack or hook ‘patented’ somewhere on it.” , , Deanna Jalbert Potter recalls her father Elmer Jalbert, Do it Yourself? , Making your own tools such as the flax break, flax hetchels, and this modern woodsplitter are examples of making do. ,