The last few days, not Saturday due to the rain most of that day, I've been working on rebuilding the fence on the west side of the island. Many, many years ago, before I had enough steel fence posts, I made a two strand barb wire fence using 2 by 4s as posts along the west side of the island. Some years ago, after I had rebuilt the south pasture fence I had some extra steel fence posts, and I had rebuilt part of the west island wooden post fence using those steel fence posts. That was a small section of the west island fence.
West of the island is the 'thumb' part of the ranch. The thumb is small and mostly trees, and is a 'thumb' due to how the one river channel bends and turns. Unless I go on the neighbor's property I have to cross the river channel a few times to get to the thumb. No need for the cattle to cross the river to go to the thumb. So I built a small fence to discourage the cattle as they wouldn't jump over the small fence as they would land in the river.
Well... that old fence of wooden posts is falling down. The part of the fence with the steel posts is fine. And sections where the fence fell down looked like animals had crossed the river as grass on the island and on the thumb were down in spots. The cattle crossed? I don't know, but time to rebuild the fence.
I used 18 steel fence posts for the rebuild. One day I carried the fence posts to the island. Then I thought the next day I would get the fence rebuilt. No, that didn't happen. I got the posts in the ground. I had to remove the wooden posts that hadn't rotted. I had to take the barb wire off the wooden posts. I discovered parts of the barb wire were in the ground. What I could pull out of the ground, I did. Other sections I broke off and left in the ground. What wire that was in the ground, and I could pull out, was corroded and was weak and not useful any more.
By dark I had gotten almost two strands of barb wire attached to the steel posts. I used what I could of the old barb wire and then started to add barb wire I had brought to use.
Saturday. Rain.
Today I brought more barb wire and thought I would finish the rebuild. I did, but it took much longer than expected. I had fastened barb wire to about four steel posts then I lost my pliers. I had used the pliers to connect another section of barb wire to the existing barb wire. I then used a wire to attach the barb wire to a post. To finish the attachment I needed my pliers. But no pliers. Not in my pants pocket. Not on the ground. I had just used the pliers about three minutes earlier. The area I was working in since I used the pliers was about 6 ft long by 2 ft wide. Not a big area. No pliers. I checked and checked. I checked a larger area. The grass was matted but I started to pull the grass in case the pliers were under the grass. Then a piece of grass cut my finger where the fingerprint is located. And I started to bleed. And I didn't stop bleeding. I washed my hand in the river. Still bleeding. Blood everywhere. Finally I had to use my other hand to press against the cut to stop the bleeding. I waited and waited and waited and stopped moving. Finally the bleeding stopped. Still, I had to be careful moving my hand as the bleeding looked like it wanted start again.
Again I looked for the pliers. Still not found. How could they be missing?! They were nowhere on the ground. Did they fall into the river? I looked. The river is shallow. I couldn't see pliers in the river. But there also were some areas of waterweed. So I took my pants off to go into the river. My pants didn't want to come off. What in the world?! I finally got my pants and shoes off. I walked in the river and searched by hand for the pliers. No pliers. I got out of the river. It was sunny and warm. I wasn't drying off. What in the world?! I rubbed water off my legs and got dry enough so I could pull my clothes back on.
I looked on the ground again. Nothing.
Finally I had walk all the way home to get another set of pliers. A long walk. I also got my magnet tool that attracts metal. My magnet tool didn't find the pliers on the ground. Even though I knew where I had been from when I used and when I lost the pliers, I searched a much larger area. No pliers.
Again I went into the river. Using the magnet tool I checked the river bottom and the waterweed areas. No pliers.
Finally I gave up. I had spent well over an hour looking for the pliers. I need to get the fence rebuilt.
I finished the second strand of barb wire using the pliers I had just brought, all while thinking of where those pliers could be. Then before starting the third strand of wire I double-checked the small area where the pliers should be. At the edge of this area, I found under some matted grass a small hole that had been created by a cow in the past who had stepped in the damp and soft ground near the side of the river. In the hole were my pliers. How they got there? You tell me. I think the hawthorn fairies did it. While I wasn't next to hawthorn trees, those trees are on the island. And this part of the ranch is where the fairies are. That I learned this past Spring when cutting hawthorn trees. The fairies must have been concerned I may cut hawthorn trees again and they were trying to drive me away.
I was able to add two more strands of barb wire to the fence. I made sure I knew where my pliers were at all times. Then wire I used to attach the barb wire to the posts would go missing between attachments. I would find the wire. But I had to pay attention to my pliers and the wire. To help with keeping track of the wire I would lay out a long section of barb wire for many posts. Then I would attach post, post, post, etc. Rather than attach post, lay out, attach post, lay out. The lay out periods were when the hawthorns fairies would try to get to my attachment wire as I wasn't holding it.
*sigh* What a pain for a simple fence rebuild. But I got it done.
At the end I decided to go over to the thumb and check out the flattened grass paths. I think the grass paths were due to deer and not cattle. Usually when cattle are involved you will find signs of manure, and I didn't find any. I did find the thumb's south barb wire fence had an area of broken wire. Those deer!
By the time I would come back with wire and tools and finish the fix it would be getting dark. I decided I will go and make the last fix tomorrow. I didn't want to give the hawthorn fairies a chance to do something else to me in the dark. Like call a bear or something.
What a day. My cut finger still hurts.
The right blue arrow is where I last used the pliers. The left blue area is where I next needed the pliers. The red arrow shows where the hole is located. You can kind of see the hole now as I had pulled and moved the grass covering the hole.
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| The hole where the pliers were found. |
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| The river area I searched. |
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| Part of the rebuilt fence. |
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