I Promised A Tale...

of my weekend work but it's Monday and I think I've  forgotten.  I know I started with a walk, my camera died.  I piled some fallen limbs in the pasture.  I listened to the highland crew rumbling vehicles and cringed at the raping of the land.  I placed rocks in washed places and picked up flint chips. 

Eight AM on a Sunday, here comes another truck and they park at the gate where the horses have gathered.  I head that way to see if there's a problem.  No problem, waiting on equipment.  I asked,  coming
through the pasture? Yep.  Do you guys know how much it rained?  Nope.  The piece has tracks, no problem.  Well, I mentioned the last time they crossed that pasture when they were told to go another way, how they bogged down two vehicles and almost got the dozer stuck too (remember the pictures).  I was not heard.

Track equipment is wonderful for one thing...it does travel where wheels will not, but it also tears the land apart!  This is disturbing land that has probably never been tracked that deep.  Sometimes they even leave track piles on the county road that a car cannot cross.  Hush, Gail, you were gonna tell them about all the work you accomplished, remember, no griping allowed.

I headed to the creek to breathe deep and enjoy the quiet of my early Sunday morning, uh, not this week, that was another time BEFORE the crew.

The water cress is blooming so most of it is very hot to eat now but still good in a salad.  Conditions have been wonderful for it to grow and I add removing the water cress from the spring branches to my growing list of things to do.

I have been letting my horses out to graze in the yard and the spring valley since the grass is so wonderful.  They have been naughty.  They rolled in the freshly planted, things coming up already garden.  Charme walked over apple trees in the orchard and broke limbs off young trees just to scratch her belly.  Okay, guys, your freedom shall be limited now.

Opened the alternate pasture, remembered two sections were cut out of the web wire to get a tractor through to haul out logs for posts (a month ago).  Okay, here's your job, go get two cattle panels carry them to this section and Southern engineer the hole in the fence.  I get the Polaris and carefully balance a twelve foot panel across the bed and drive over all the lumps left by machinery, barely fit through the gate and finally get within forty feet of the fence...and the panel falls off.  I carry it the rest of the way, piece of cake, brace and tie it to a metal post and head out for the other panel.

The horses are grazing in their new section peacefully until I head back in with the second panel.  You could see the idea hit Charme, I swear there was a light bulb above her head.  She starts trotting to the hole in the fence.  I am hollering whoa, don't you dare, come back here, all this while I am reaching backwards with one arm where I won't lose this panel and bouncing toward the hole in the fence. Charme finally listened but I got that hateful look that she sometimes gives me when things don't go her way.

I am almost to the fence and same spot, the panel slides, I remember to let go as my shoulder is wrenched from its socket and also remember to stop the ranger.  So I am doing good here.  Carry this panel too, hook it into the other panel and it lacks six inches before it reaches the next post!  Go back to the ranger looking for wire, anything to fill that hole, found some wire, nothing to cut it.  I am not making twenty five trips back to the shop to get this done.  I am making do, Southern engineering all the way.  I found a hachet and a hammer and proceed to cut the wire.  It works and I weave my magic with the wire and the panels.

Whew, I am finished, no one has escaped and it is just noon!