Posted on by Mike Firesmith

Fencing, After the Rain

Rain, more rain, then it rained. Yesterday was nonstop waterworks, and that meant the fence might be down. The hotwire around the perimeter definitely. Dawn arrived late, cold, wet, raw, and the wind drove all warmth away from bare skin. The dogs went out with me, but only Budlore Amadeus remained. Bud has a sense of mission, the idea if I am out in the woods working someone ought to be with me, and that someone has to be him.

Bud and I walk the perimeter first. I look for one of the giant trees to fall one day, or shed a large limb, and that’s going to be a job that takes an entire day, or many. Those huge limbs from older Oaks weigh tons, not pounds, and Live Oak wood is dense and knotty. I hope nothing like this has happened, but if I live long enough I know it will.

The perimeter walk shows only one small tree has fallen on the fence, but I’ll need to lift it from the base to move it. It puts up a fight, wedges itself between a larger tree and the fence, so I have to wiggle it up, work the end of it away from the bind. Bud doesn’t like me being on the other side of the fence, and he watches with his ears up, his body tense, and a look of concern in his eyes. Bud is a simple creature; if it is different it is wrong in some way. This is an animal that has some sort of working breed in his DNA. Bud is a guard dog, a protector, and the only way for anyone to be safe is for everything to be exactly the same all the time. The tree gets freed and I go back over the fence, and Bud is happy. But the hot wire is as cold as the wind.

The pack I have now is the most secure that’s ever lived here. Bud is not going to leave the yard. He’s been out there and he didn’t like it. He certainly isn’t going to leave Mom, ever, for very long. This might be the only real home Bud has ever known. His job is here. Mom is here, and Mom is Bud’s real mission. Jessica Elizabeth won’t leave Bud. She is his shadow and isn’t looking to escape. Wrex Wyatt has bolted out of the front door two or three times, but he never goes far. Lilith Anne can’t walk away from home, much less run. Lilith is not long for this earth, and it will be sad when she goes. Lilith is the last member of the First Pack alive. Her passing will mark the end of an era in my life.

Of course, minor branches, small limbs, and downed Spanish Moss litters the fence. That’s normal. None of this is enough to ground out the hot wire, but I’ve done this so many times before, so I know there’s got to be something. Finally, a limb that has pinned the wire to the fence is discovered. Small, and not a problem, yet it’s grounded out the wire. I remove it and put the tester to the wire. Four lights blink on and off, the pulsating power of the fence charger now energizing the tester.

Bud thinks we ought to walk the perimeter again, just to make sure, so we do. Bud zooms ahead, stops to mark his territory, sniffs the fallen limbs, marks them, and if I had ten acres he might die of dehydration. I find small stuff on the fence, noting serious, and pull a vine out that was creeping up the fence. But overall, it wasn’t as bad as I feared.

I’m cold. Bud is cold, and the wind picks up. We’ll have to do this again tomorrow morning, I’m sure, but for the moment, both Bud and I are heading inside to warm ourselves. The fence is up, the electricity is coursing through the wire, and Budlore Amadeus has once again kept me safe from anything evil. We stop on the deck and I scrub his back, pet his ears, and tell him what a good dog he is. Bud wiggles with excitement, happy that he got to go out and work with me, and happy to return to the rest of the pack, and the warmth of home.

Take Care,

Mike

Posted on by Mike Firesmith · 1 Comment

Lightning in a Wire

Photo taken during the storm, right as lightning lit up the world

Before the storm moved in yesterday, I spent most of the morning digging out the compost pile, doing the work I could before everything was flooded. My plan went off without a hitch as the compost pile area is now super saturated, after three inches of rain. Another inch and there will be a compost island. But a tree fell on top of the fence, this meant cutting it into pieces, and removing it so the electric fence keeps zapping.

Not large, as far as trees go, but this one was covered in vines, which I assume led to its demise. Vines create a pull on the trees, and they also keep it from swaying with the wind the way trees do naturally, so this one broke in half, and landed squarely on my fence. A cut here, a cut there, another over there, and ordinarily the tree could have been removed easily. But the vines had it tied up, so first I had to cut through a green squid of vines, with tentacles reaching out to grab a blade or foul the cutters in some way. Into the compost pile this will all go, eventually, and the tree and the vines will return to the earth, as we all should.

I plugged the fence back up and got the whisper of a heartbeat of energy in the wire. There’s nothing to be done but walk the fence and hope the mosquitoes and ticks do not devour me before I can find the problem. Quickly, it becomes clear there’s more than one issue with the fence, and it’s only been a week or so since I cleaned it out. But that was seven inches of rain ago, and the jungle has returned. There’s a small limb pinning the wire, a broken insulator that was hit, and a few more small branches are removed, along with any vines that are creeping too close. The wind caused one section of the hot wire to get stuck on the fence, but all in all, there’s nothing horrible or time consuming. The mosquitoes, however, are truly terrible.

Ticks were not always a problem here at Hickory Head. I would pick one or two up a year, the dogs might get one on occasion, but two years ago, all hell broke loose and now I cannot go into the woods and not get a couple, if not three. My neighbor and I noticed them about the same time, so it’s not just me, and not just my neck of the woods. I can give the dogs medication to kill the ticks that attack them, but that doesn’t keep the ticks from hitching a ride into the house.

Walking the fence line, and cleaning it out means I am now lunch, no matter how much repellent I spray on my clothes and body. The vegetation near the line is covered with rainwater from yesterday and the ground is soaked. I’m drenched within minutes.

But this is old work, something I’ve done since fencing this area in, and putting a charger on it. I know how to do it, know how to get it done, and it must be. There’s no other way, and there’s no one else, so into the breech. About three quarters of the way through, in the area that’s not as wooly, I pick a small branch off the wire, that’s grounded it, and I know the limb grounded the wire because when I removed it, I was touching the wire, and had my other hand on the fence.

Now I am perfectly aware the fence is live again. The shock tears through my body like a physical blow, and this is the result I want when a dog touches the fence, and why no dog has gotten out in over three years.

Wow. That will wake you up in the morning, says I.

My left arm feels woozy, but there’s not much more to go. My shoes are soaked, as is the pair from yesterday. I am running out of work footwear. The pond is up higher than it’s been in a while, and it’s a good thing; too much water is a lot better than not enough.

But the fence is up and running, a hot shower and clean clothes are in order, and the dogs are safe again.

Take Care,

Mike