Read Online Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West by Bryce Andrews - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Bryce Andrews
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barrier imaginable. There were barbwire fences and high-tensile ones, suspension fences and let-down fences, rail fences, jacklegs, old fences, and new ones.
My days were tangled up in wire and dried elk shit, whichrolled underneath my boots. In certain places, like the little grassy bowl we called Snowball, the elk crossed habitually. Up there the wires were shredded, more splice than space in between. I spent hours patching them back together—kneeling on the ground, twisting wire, grunting, sweating, and bleeding from forearm scratches. Months later, during hunting season, I remembered the precise routes that elk use to move across the ranch.
After a few days of splicing barbwire, nothing sounds quite so good as working on a let-down fence. Most of ours were a three-wire electric design, with the wires attached to stout wooden posts by plastic pin-lock insulators. In the fall, after the cattle were shipped off, someone would walk the line and pull all the pins. The wires fell to the ground and lay there all winter, safe from snowdrifts and passing herds. In spring, getting the pasture ready for cattle was as simple as lifting the wires up and clipping them back to the posts.
Once, I set out early to work my way around a let-down fence that started above the barn and headed west until it met a big ridge. Turning south from there, the fence climbed for miles toward the ridgeline. The whole pasture was tilted, and the top rose high enough to be visible from almost anywhere in the valley.
I can’t remember why I started at the bottom of the hill. Maybe I thought I could use the exercise. More likely it was too early in the morning to do any thinking at all. Either way I left the four-wheeler at the gate, grabbed my fencing pliers, buckled on a tool belt full of extra insulators and staples, and headed for the first post.
The routine was simple: walk to the post, reach out with the pliers, yank the pin from one of the insulators, stoop, lift the wire, slip it into the insulator, and slam the pin home. I repeated theprocess for each wire, and then moved on to the next post in the line. I got good at this, and quick enough so that from a distance it must have looked like I was paying my respects to a receiving line of posts—bowing three times and then moving on.
Fixing fence would be a lot easier if it didn’t involve bending over all the time. Because I’m relatively tall, my back always wears out first. I tried to extend its useful life with little tricks like dropping onto one knee while I clipped the bottom wire or developing shortcuts that let me straighten up a fraction sooner on each post. Perfecting these strategies usually distracted me from the pain and repetition.
Sometimes the pins were missing, so I replaced them with crimped, two-inch fencing staples. Every so often an insulator was torn away or chewed to a nub. I pulled a new one from a pocket on my tool belt and stapled it up, wondering what creature ate insulators and why.
Slowly, over the course of a few hours, I climbed halfway up the hill. It was one of those clear, early season days that starts out cold enough to sting your lungs and then blossoms into something like summer. The sun had come up in a clear blue sky and the new, raw light of spring scorched the pasture. It flashed off the wires, making me squint and stumble. Conspiring with the pasture’s slope, the sun warmed me until I itched beneath my jacket and my face beaded with sweat.
I would have taken off my coat and left it hanging on the fence, but the shape of the pasture and my plans for the day were such that I would pass each spot only once. Returning for the jacket would have meant walking far out of my way, so I kept it on and labored up the line, stewing.
But as I sweated my way uphill, everything began to go haywire: a pin wouldn’t pop free of the insulator, and then it wouldn’t slide back in; a staple twisted as I pounded it with the fencing pliers, splitting the post; I
My days were tangled up in wire and dried elk shit, whichrolled underneath my boots. In certain places, like the little grassy bowl we called Snowball, the elk crossed habitually. Up there the wires were shredded, more splice than space in between. I spent hours patching them back together—kneeling on the ground, twisting wire, grunting, sweating, and bleeding from forearm scratches. Months later, during hunting season, I remembered the precise routes that elk use to move across the ranch.
After a few days of splicing barbwire, nothing sounds quite so good as working on a let-down fence. Most of ours were a three-wire electric design, with the wires attached to stout wooden posts by plastic pin-lock insulators. In the fall, after the cattle were shipped off, someone would walk the line and pull all the pins. The wires fell to the ground and lay there all winter, safe from snowdrifts and passing herds. In spring, getting the pasture ready for cattle was as simple as lifting the wires up and clipping them back to the posts.
Once, I set out early to work my way around a let-down fence that started above the barn and headed west until it met a big ridge. Turning south from there, the fence climbed for miles toward the ridgeline. The whole pasture was tilted, and the top rose high enough to be visible from almost anywhere in the valley.
I can’t remember why I started at the bottom of the hill. Maybe I thought I could use the exercise. More likely it was too early in the morning to do any thinking at all. Either way I left the four-wheeler at the gate, grabbed my fencing pliers, buckled on a tool belt full of extra insulators and staples, and headed for the first post.
The routine was simple: walk to the post, reach out with the pliers, yank the pin from one of the insulators, stoop, lift the wire, slip it into the insulator, and slam the pin home. I repeated theprocess for each wire, and then moved on to the next post in the line. I got good at this, and quick enough so that from a distance it must have looked like I was paying my respects to a receiving line of posts—bowing three times and then moving on.
Fixing fence would be a lot easier if it didn’t involve bending over all the time. Because I’m relatively tall, my back always wears out first. I tried to extend its useful life with little tricks like dropping onto one knee while I clipped the bottom wire or developing shortcuts that let me straighten up a fraction sooner on each post. Perfecting these strategies usually distracted me from the pain and repetition.
Sometimes the pins were missing, so I replaced them with crimped, two-inch fencing staples. Every so often an insulator was torn away or chewed to a nub. I pulled a new one from a pocket on my tool belt and stapled it up, wondering what creature ate insulators and why.
Slowly, over the course of a few hours, I climbed halfway up the hill. It was one of those clear, early season days that starts out cold enough to sting your lungs and then blossoms into something like summer. The sun had come up in a clear blue sky and the new, raw light of spring scorched the pasture. It flashed off the wires, making me squint and stumble. Conspiring with the pasture’s slope, the sun warmed me until I itched beneath my jacket and my face beaded with sweat.
I would have taken off my coat and left it hanging on the fence, but the shape of the pasture and my plans for the day were such that I would pass each spot only once. Returning for the jacket would have meant walking far out of my way, so I kept it on and labored up the line, stewing.
But as I sweated my way uphill, everything began to go haywire: a pin wouldn’t pop free of the insulator, and then it wouldn’t slide back in; a staple twisted as I pounded it with the fencing pliers, splitting the post; I
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