Under the Wire

"In the Spring time a young man's thoughts turn to thoughts of ... "

I know how this often quoted saying is supposed to end. I also know that Spring has different meaning for different people. I'll bet though, that everyone in cattle country has one thought come to mind as spring approaches. Fence fixing! Good old back breaking, glove tearing fence repair.

Most of cattle country gets a fair share of snow in the winter. The mountains get more depth than the wind driven storms on the plains, but the end result is the same. Wire is pulled loose from posts or broken, posts rotted off and staples missing. Add to this a few holes torn by passing animals like deer, antelope, hunters, elk, and you have your whole spring's work lined out for you. Spring is probably the only time many of us wish we lived in Iowa. On an eighty acre corn farm. Corn doesn't need fenced in, plus how much fence can you have around 80 acres?

Out here, we take pride in the size of our operations. We like to talk about the hundreds, or thousands of acres or perhaps the number of sections in our outfits. It's a source of pride to even the most modest rancher, until the time comes to go around the fences. A simple section has at least four miles of fence around it. That's four miles of holes to dig, wire to splice and staples to replace. Some have many times that amount of fence to go over. A rancher has to admit the thought of covering 20 or more miles of fence, post by post, staple by staple kind of makes you cringe when those first tulips poke through the snow. As the ground thaws out, shovels, post bars and rolls of barb wire become part of the old pickup's daily load.

It's not that we really mind it, you understand. The first sight of green grass out on the ranges each spring is a celebration of life for us all; a sort of renewal of our spirits. Fencing gives us a chance to get out after being hemmed in by snow and cold all winter. I guess it's sort of a ritual we all look forward to in spite of the grinding monotony of the work itself.

I'm pretty sure the poet who wrote the lines quoted at the beginning of this column never had to fix fence. I suppose his thoughts were on other things. If you are wondering why I’m just getting around to writing about Spring which has long passed us by, there are two reasons. One, I was too busy in April and May to write much at all. Two, at that time, nothing about the job seemed worth writing about. Some subjects take longer to seem interesting.