Adventures in fence fixing

As my [Marilyn’s] dad grows older, so does his mind. His mind has gradually drifted off the regular straight and narrow path that it once took. Our family has decided to roll with the punches and look at Dad’s mind-drifting as a kind of road trip for us!

My brother has definitely gotten to take Dad’s road trip more than once.

“Didn’tcha see me wave back?”

After long, hard High Plains winters, with our snowfalls, winds and blizzards, each pasture has at least a small portion of fence that needs repairing before we can put our cattle out to pasture for the summer. Tumbleweeds need to be pulled out of the tangled barbed wire and new fence posts put in the ground. This is a hard job, with many miles spent walking behind the pickup, which is loaded with all the tools and equipment needed to fix fences.

One particular spring day, Brother and Dad were in the far south summer pasture, the pickup loaded with fence repairing equipment and their high work boots on. Brother does most of the manual labor these days, and lets Dad drive the pickup.

Their game plan was for Dad to drive about four fence post lengths, then stop and wait for Brother to wave at him. Once he sees Brother wave, Dad can move the pickup to the place where Brother is waiting. For most of the morning, this seems to work fine. Brother walks ahead of the pickup, waves, Dad stops, waits until Brother moves up four more fence post lengths, and repeats the process over and over.

Then Brother waves at Dad and nothing happens. The pickup doesn’t move an inch. Brother waves again. Again, nothing. Brother is straining his eyes to see if Dad has some sort of problem. Since he couldn’t tell, he strode back to where Dad is sitting in the pickup. Brother arrives at the pickup and asks Dad, “Didn’tcha see me waving atcha?”

Dad says, “Yes. Didn’tcha see me wave back?“

Time to call it a day.

Snakes in the grass

The days are warming up, which means that a fence fixer must watch for snakes in the tall pasture grasses.

On this particular day, Brother is walking alongside the pickup as Dad drives beside him. With a hot south wind blowing and the morning growing ever warmer, Dad had rolled up his window to soak in the air conditioning.

As Brother walks the fence line, he realizes that he has stepped on something that is moving. He looks down and sees that he has stepped on a snake’s head. He does not move. He knocks on Dad’s window and says, “Get out and get me the shovel!”

Dad asks, “Why?”

Brother says, “’Cuz I’m standing on a snake! Now get out of the truck and hand me the shovel!”

Dad rolls up his window again. Brother knocks on the window even harder.

Dad rolls it down a tad, saying, “It’s hot out there!”

Exasperated, Brother shouts, “GET ME THE SHOVEL, FOR GOD’S SAKE!”

It’s definitely time to go home.

Getting some exercise

On another day, Brother is riding on the pickup’s tailgate as Dad drives along the fence row. The game plan is that when Brother needs Dad to stop, he will pound on the bed of the truck. Brother will get off and repair the fence. When repair is done, he will pound on the truck bed, signaling to Dad to again move forward.

This process goes on for some time. As the morning stretches into mid-day, Dad’s foot begins to get tired of holding down the clutch as he waits for Brother to do the fence repair. Just as Brother is about to sit on the pickup bed, he sees the ground beneath him begin to move. Instead of sitting on the pickup, he sits on the ground.

The truck continues to move forward. Brother picks himself up and catches up to Dad.

As Dad continues to drive, he says to Brother, “Why are you walking?”

Brother says, “Guess I needed more exercise.”

Home sounds very good right now.