Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

Or maybe it just keeps neighbors from being worse neighbors. Mike and my brother Chuck decided it was time to string some line on the north end of the pasture. No horse has ever jumped the irrigation ditch but there was a time last year that I went out and found a herd of Corriente looking steers in the pasture that had escaped from miles down the road and ended up in the pasture of paradise, eating and relaxing all day. The experience of rounding them up during one of our famous dust storms would take another blog post.

I have to give these guys a lot of credit. It was about 115 degrees that day as you can tell from Mike's wet shirt. I was a major wimp. I took the photos and told the guys I would be back. Such a coward, never went out again all afternoon.

It's called barb-less wire because it doesn't have the sharp points like barbed wire does. It may look like a small roll but it weighs about 80 pounds.

They strung at least a quarter mile of line that day.

Nice work!  Now we don't have to worry about any escape artists or uninvited guests.

While I was writing the blog I came across this:

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors - the proverb contains the irresolvable tension between boundary and hospitality, between demarcation and common space, between individuality and collectivity, and between other conflicting attitudes that separate people from each other. Be it as neighbors, be it as villages, or be it as nations. (Caroline Westerhoff)