Fences are going up and fences are coming down. It hardly seems to make sense.  But the fences that were already here are bent, rusty and hidden under years of decaying leaves and covered in twisted vines.  And to make their removal even more complicated, they are interwoven with barbed wire.  I’ve learned how to use bolt cutters and have removed most of the old fencing from along the side of the driveway.  But there is still more to go…

In the meantime, the barn is in place and ready for horses, but without a fence around the pasture, it doesn’t do us much good. With alternating weeks of snow and then 60 degree weather, it’s been a challenge to find a few days when we could find the fence line beneath the snow, yet not so muddy that the equipment would ruin the pasture.  We finally hit the perfect stretch of days.  The snow had mostly melted, the ground had refrozen, and I was home sick with bronchitis.

The fencing crew arrived and cleared a stretch of brush from what we call the “back pasture” over to the “upper pasture” so that the fence line could connect between the two. It amazing what we find buried, hidden and discarded on the property.  In that stretch of brush we have several toilet tanks (no toilet bowls), a rusty bed frame and some old rain gutters.  Removing all that will be a project for another day.

The fence posts went up, the horse wire was pulled from post to post and the gate went into place. They installed post and rail on the stretch of the fence that faces the back of the house, purely for aesthetics.  How pretty it will be when I wake up in the morning, look out the back windows and see the horses frolicking in the field behind the post and rail fence.  That’s the idyllic vision, anyway.  I’ll let you know how it turns out once they arrive.

But one fence wasn’t enough – we needed a second fence for my garden. It is a tall fence around a big, sunny, southern facing, slightly sloping garden plot just to the side of the garage.  This fence is 6 feet tall to keep the deer out, with a gate large enough to let the roto-tiller in.  In the scheme of things, I could have bought vegetables at the grocery store for a lot of years for less than this fence cost – but that’s no fun.  My seeds are ready, my hands are itching to get inside my garden gloves and I’m marking off the days on the calendar.