A Toby Day

Toby got home around 5 PM yesterday. I had called him at work to give him the heads up that the horses were loose and we needed to work on the fence. The horses seemed content to hang with the neighbor horses across the fence, but we needed to pen them up since we do not have a gate to keep them off of the highway. My plan was simple: attach the new solar fence charger to the old fence and put the horses back in their place. Toby’s plan was a bit more complex: put up a whole new fence across the pond in a different pasture, which would mean taking down the old fence and putting it up again. Then brush-hogging a fence line through the waist deep grass, which would mean changing out the blade on the tractor for the brush-hog.

I wish I could raise one eyebrow, because then you could know my skepticism concerning his plan. Toby’s plan was not all that difficult sounding, but I know my man and nothing is as simple as he plans. I pointed out my concerns on changing out tractor appliances and moving the fence – he assured me it would be no problem. At this point, I just resigned myself to whatever happens happens. I’m just along for the adventure.

We loaded all of the fencing equipment into the truck. While he switched the blade on the tractor for the brush-hog, I took down the old fence and added it to the fencing supply in the truck. My job consisted of pulling up re-bar and rolling up the electric wire. I was finished by the time he had the brush-hog on the tractor. He had found a bolt that was missing and was working to replace it and tighten up some other bolts (it has been awhile since he last used the brush-hog). As he walked around the brush-hog he noticed that there was quite a bit of bailing twine that had wound itself onto the rear wheel of the brush-hog. He decided to cut the twine off of the wheel. My thoughts, "Hasn’t that been there for years? Why are we doing this now? The horses are still running loose." I kept my mouth shut and went to his aid. Thirty minutes later, we were still trying to get the twine unwound from the wheel. Toby shut down the tractor since this was taking longer than he assumed it would. Then he decided it would be helpful to just remove the wheel altogether. My thought: What if the wheel won’t go back on?" I kept my mouth shut. The wheel would not come off easily. Toby had to get a hammer and bang on the pin (large bolt holding the wheel on). We banged, cut, pulled and worked on the wheel for over an hour. Finally we got the twine off. Sure enough his banging on the pin caused the threads on the end to get bent and the nut (that holds everything in place) would not go back on. Toby got the file and hacksaw after the pin and eventually got the wheel all back together. I went to get in the truck and he got in the tractor, but now the tractor would not start. It seemed to be some short in the electrical system or possibly the battery, but it had just started an hour earlier with no problem. Toby worked on the wires, he beat on the starter, he jumped the tractor off with the truck – all to no avail. He asked my opinion this time. I told him we could either put the old fence back up and the new charger on it or we could get the battery out of the bulldozer and see if that was the problem. Guess which one he went with. We drove down to the bulldozer and got the battery, carried it back to the tractor, and hooked it up. The tractor started with a puff of smoke coming from the positive cable (I hope that was okay). He got in the tractor to do the brush-hogging on the new fence line. I got in the truck to carry all of the supplies. The spillway on the pond dam is dam muddy right now – just right for getting the truck stuck, but I managed to get across okay. We set the fence up along with the new charger. Zoe accidentally checked it for us - it was hot. We loaded up in the truck and started back across the pond dam with Toby driving. We almost got stuck, but I was doing some serious praying. Now it was time to play cowgirl and catch the horses. We’ve done this so many times lately that the horses are getting use to me again, and were little trouble.

After putting the equipment in the barn, it was about 8 PM. I went to fix supper, but the horses were not being appreciative of their new pasture. Toby had to go back and extend the hotwire further out into the pond (wading waist deep and putting up another pole attaching it to the hotwire). Supper was ready by the time he got home. We finished supper and were relaxing when Jesse got home around 9 PM. I’m a bit sore and stiff from all the work yesterday, but it was a job well done. Toby is always a fun date.