075
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Title
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075
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Transcription
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BARBED WIRE
Just one more day, and I will have examined every fence post on the ranch. Ten miles of barbed wire will keep 150 head of cattle in the pasture and out of the hay meadows and grain fields.
The men who trailed cattle from Texas to Montana didn't have to bother with barbed wire fences, it was those invading homesteaders that started the problem. My father was one of those homesteaders. He taught me how to build fence, to dig post holes and string barbed wire. Good firm corner posts were necessary in order to have wire tight enough to discourage cattle and horses from crawling thru between the wires. "Good fences make good neighbors," was a statement I often heard, as a boy.
The month of April was a very long month for me. It was calving time and I had to make regular trips to the meadow where we kept the cattle all winter. Then I would hitch the team to a wagon and load it with a dozen fence posts, and a few rolls of barbed wire. I would wear a good pair of heavy leather gloves to keep from cutting my hands, and getting blisters from the posthole digger. I will have a post hole digger, a wire stretcher, staples, hammer, wire cutters, and a pair of pliers.
My plans this morning will be to cover my half of the fence that joins our neighbor on the south. Many of the posts have been rotted off and I will reset them or replace them with new ones. The ground is wet from recent rains and the digging is easier than where I have been working, but by noon, I am tired, my shoulders ache and I am bored with the job.
A familiar buzz, gives me a start as I touch a rotting corner post. I give it a shake, I hear the buzz again, there is a rattler some where, I can't see him, but I learned from my father many years before, that I must stand still and make no move until I can locate the snake. I soon spot it lying in the sun, close to a Yucca plant. I reach for my shovel and cut his head off. I remove the rattles and take them home to add to the jar that is half full from the collection that I have made thru the years.
It looks as if we are going to have a change in the weather, so I head for home, and get there just in time. There is lots of lightening with this storm and I am glad to stay under cover. When there is lightening it's no time to repair fence. Our neighbor lost 5 head of cattle that were standing along the fence, when lightening struck and ran along the wire and executed all of them.
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Rights
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Metzger Memories
