Monday, May 09, 2005

Mending Fence

You know you are a rancher's wife when you can mend your torn pants and the fence you tore them on. I am definitely a rancher's wife. Jesse is a rancher's daughter. Since we are shipping out cattle on Tuesday, we needed to get some fences ready to move the cattle around from one pasture to another. While we were still at the kitchen table on Saturday, Toby came in carrying an arm full of beer to put in the fridge. My son, Bo, looked over at me and said, "Looks like Dad is going to work us hard today." He did work us pretty hard, but it was an overcast day, and we did well. The beer was great at the end of the day.

Toby had new-fangled barbed wire holder to make rolling out the wire easier. It worked pretty well compared to the old lawnmower handle he rigged up last year. The lawnmower handle worked okay for a little while, but it came apart pretty easily - didn't last too long. The new-fangled holder was built like a single pole toilet-paper holder that fit on the trailer hitch of the truck. The old lawnmower handle was more like a regular toilet paper holder that we had to drag behind the four-wheeler. Bo and I did snicker at the design of the new-fangled holder when it fell off the truck. Toby made a few adjustments with the welding torch, and we used it again the next day.

Bo was not able to help us on Sunday afternoon. Jesse and I took our turns at the post-pounder (another convenient homemade tool). We should be able to finish the fence this afternoon, ship cattle out on Tuesday morning, and still make it to the quilting guild. A woman's work is never done.

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