Picking up fence. Part 1.
Living in a climate like this where the death of winter is so complete, my whole body aches for any signs of coming spring. Color is starting to seep back into the bleak beige-gray landscape. Cheat grass has started growing under last years dry pasture grass, and the cows are chasing it. It must taste like candy to them after a winter of dry hay millet, corn stalks, and alfalfa bales. A seemingly infinite number of meadowlarks sit atop fenceposts and tall weeds, feverishly whistling their breeding song and displaying their bright yellow chests like gaudy flowers. Spring has started.
It became unseasonably warm last week and around here thoughts immediately turned to the land, and the farmwork that has to be started. There is a rhythmic seasonal cycle to the work on the farm, but the pace isn't fervid and desperate like the meadowlark, it is methodical. Tractors are started, greased, repaired. They go up and down the road on errands for the first time since last fall. A pickup tows a grain auger down the road, moving slowly and deliberately like an insect: a giant praying mantis on the horizon.
First up for us is to take down the electric fences. Every fall we put them around certain fields of wheat stubble and corn stalks for the cows to graze during the winter. This year we have four and a half miles of fence to pull up. Gary and I slowly walk the perimeter of the field, leapfrogging ahead of each other, bringing the tractor along. We carry a short metal bar to bang the post, releasing the rust and possible frost bond, then slip the hole over the post and pull it out. Then a twist to the post to release the wire from the insulator. About six to eight posts at a time, each handful stacked in the tractor bucket as we go. Over and over, we do this slow dance around the field; a simple and efficient choreography. This two and a half mile fence entailed pulling 275 or so posts. We will return later to roll up the wire.
The job, on a nice windless day like this one, is peaceful and contemplative, like walking meditation. We discover that the rush to get this field ready to farm may be premature since it is muddier and wetter than expected. The thick mud slowly leavens out from under the heavy tires as the tractor sits, waiting.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010 at 03:16PM
Reader Comments (1)
OK, so why do you need electric in the winter, but not in the summer? Also, do you have some big ol' wire spools that take a mile or so of wire that you just roll along to get that wire?
Here in Chicago, we're finishing the first week of daffodils poking through and we're watching the tree limbs for the first buds. No flowers blooming yet and the nubs are just showing a hint of green under the bark. We don't usually get much in March, and this year's been pretty chilly, as highlighted by our overnight forecast of 12 degrees. On Sunday I go to DC for a couple days and expect to see a full dose of springtime there.
As ever, I'm keeping my eyes peeled for industry news that pops up that I can share with you, much in the way my mother-in-law might. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/dining/24beef.html?scp=1&sq=kansas%20beef&st=cse
Feel the spring. Be well. jh