Farmer Brown Monday

Love that paddock...

We have to goat proof our fences before we head away in just over a week for a trip to Europe. One self sufficiency lifestyle writer pointed out that goats have 24 hours a day to work out how to get through your fence.... you don't have that much time to prevent then doing so. Anyway, today I was making an attempt to repair fences so that the goats can wander free while we are away. (After several times of trying to keep them within our boundary fences we generally tether them on long ropes these days... but while we are away we want them to have freedom.) It was a frosty morning down in the paddock and I have worked away there till dark tonight. I got frustrated. I scratched, hit and hurt my hands often. But I loved it! There is something nice about doing physical work. There is something nice about working in an open paddock. I wish I was able to record the sound of the birds, the little stream and the feel of the grass and bush. I used to holiday on a farm when I was a kid and in my dreams would loved to have been a farmer.

Uncle George's fencing lessons...

I could not help but be thinking of my "Uncle" George Simmons as I repaired fences today. In the Christmas New Year period 1963/64 I holidayed on his farm. One of the projects we worked on was repairing boundary fences away out on his sheep run property. It was rugged hills and tussock country. While helping out there I learned so much that comes flooding back as I have worked on fences the last two Mondays. Before I started last week I cut a little bit of flat steel about 3 inches long and nearly 3/4 inch wide. I drilled a small hole in one end big enough to take the wire I was working with. This was a gadget Uncle George used to twist wire around another and it is so helpful. "Thank you Uncle George." I tied a "number eight" knot to join the wire, it tightens on itself as you strain it up. "Thank you Uncle George." Years ago while rummaging through a messy secondhand shop I came across some fencing pliers and wire strainers going cheap. My wife wondered what I was buying. They were cheap because I don't think the second hand dealer knew what they were. Today, remembering how Uncle George used them they paid for themselves in full. "Thank you Uncle George." I wonder if anybody has learned lessons from watching me like I learned lessons from watching Uncle George? I wonder what sort of lessons they learned? Oh dear.

A little bit of vegetation can muck up your swing!?

If you have every tried to hammer in a fencing staple or a nail with blades of grass or twigs or other very small vegetation around you will know what I mean. It never ceases to amaze me that some small bit of grass obscuring you view, or stuck to the claw of your hammer or near the nail you are aiming for can some how put you off your swing. It just does! You say to yourself, "I can hammer through that. It will be OK." but somehow you miss the mark, slide off sideways or bend the nail. It reminded me today that sometimes the smallest remark, the off hand comment can often knock a person's confidence and hinder them from being all that they can be. One bit of writing says, "The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest people with the smallest ideas." I was reminded of that today when my hammer swing was repeatedly put off by the smallest bits of vegetation. The line finishes with... "Think big anyway!"

Photos:

- A view of our paddock with it's little creek winding across it.

- My hammer and a sample of the flimsy looking vegetation that has annoyed it all day.