I have sadly been absent from my post until now thanks to a daunting task master that I shall call my HUSBAND! My transition from concrete jungle mistress to fork wielding farm hand has not been a particularly smooth one which is quite an understatement. I have always prided myself on being very physically fit but I can tell you lifting weights, riding a bike or running on a treadmill is child’s play. Real physical work has been a rude awakening and my timing, like everything in my life has been somewhat off. A smart woman does this work in her 20′s and 30′s NOT her 50′s. Every morning I get up and I feel like an airplane tray table – it takes quite a bit of time to get into an upright and locked position with a lot of moaning, groaning and bitching in the process!
The grueling work I am referring to is the rebuilding of a farm that my husband and I decided to take on last year during what has to have been a moment of insanity! In order to properly secure this farm we have had to rebuild 5 miles of fence to secure our cattle. It is a centennial farm, in the same family for over 100 years, which made me proud to think we were putting something so special back together UNTIL we hit day after day of 150 degree weather last June that never let up until maybe October! Last spring, summer, fall and winter have been made up of long, hellish days with endless rolls of high tensile wire snaking in and out of nasty ravines and thorny vine covered hideaways coupled with some pretty high tensile tempers to boot! In order to fully appreciate my plight you must understand that my husband does not do anything half way, in fact, all summer long I accused him of building fences to hold rabbits not cows! This is no exaggeration, take five miles of fence and multiply that by 6 and that will tell you how much ground we have covered over and over and over again!
In a few weeks we will be finished just shy of a year and 12 hour days with very few days off. My body cannot wait. During this time we have suffered cuts, bruises, pulled muscles, ripped clothes and the coup de gra, my husband nearly ripped his nose off on father’s day by a piece of uncoiling rebar that decided to unhinge his nose. I learned that day that I am no good in an emergency! Do you have any idea how much blood is involved in a nose injury? I hope you never have to find out. A long day in the emergency room, plastic surgery and a nose back in place was our father’s day celebration this year.
I have to say that the best part of this story is the response from the cattle rancher that leased the land before us as to why they never fixed fence one. “Oh we didn’t need to fix the fences we had our cattle trained to know where the fence lines were! I can’t believe he was actually able to say that with a straight face because I happened to witness those cattle trying to take an afternoon swim in my ex-husband’s very expensive pool on numerous occasions, actually too many to count! In a fit of laughter I just said well we were in a different business because we happened to be raising beef cattle not circus animals, but hey, good luck with that one!
With the worst of the work behind us I can gaze out across our beautiful, highly-contained pastures and watch the sunset on our Mama cows and their newly born babies and smile. Every part of my body aches with the long miles of summer, fall and winter days of grueling work but nothing can possibly top the sense of pride I have in a job well done. My husband might be a fence Nazi but he knows his stuff and he has put up with my learning curve and whining until I became a true ranch hand and not a concrete jungle queen!