More Than Roots

On occasion, we come across old fencing when working around the farm, sometimes from fences that were established, used and abandoned. Other times, rolls of wire or a long tangle can be found as we are digging in the dirt when trenching. When I was down along the riparian where Mike had bladed the large wild blackberries out, remnants of an old fence line were found as I shoveled holes for the seedlings.

What long pieces of barb wire I could extract from the wet ground was rolled up into rounds. Then I went along with a strong magnet searching for those smaller chunks of wire that had broken off. The smaller pieces are the most dangerous for the cattle, if one happened to be eaten with a bunch of grass, it could poke a hole in one of the stomachs or intestines. Fortunately, it doesn’t happen often and when ever we find metal of any kind we are quick to clean it up and get it out of the areas where the herd can tread.

It appears that this fence was around a small field that kept the cows away from the river during flooding. The usefulness of the fence ended at least 50 years ago judging from the amount of vegetation and loamy silt that covered the fence line.

Most of this day was spent removing the old in order to have a clean spot for the seedlings to reside. My trusty bucket was filled along with the rolls that I had accumulated down by the river as I scraped and dug around in the dirt.

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