The grass is always greener...

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.    This colloquialism is often used when describing the fact that even though we have it pretty good where we are, we think it is better elsewhere.  Yeah, life is pretty good, but if I just had (fill in the blank), I would be happy.  I'm blessed, but if I had ($XXXX) in my bank account, I would be content.  If I was like old so and so, I'd have it made.  Funny how this works.  I'm certainly guilty of thinking that way more times than I'd like to admit.  Cattle are no different.  They're never satisfied. 

The Rolling Stones sang about this lack of being satisfied in their song, "I can't get no satisfaction."  Now, the Stones were undoubtedly very knowledgeable about grass but not the type of grass we're discussing today.  Cattle are looking for good grass, too: bahia grass and bermuda grass.  What a stubborn bunch of animals cows can be.  We have had plenty of rain this summer and the pasture is knee deep with lush grass, but cows are always looking for something better.

Dad gets calls from the Sheriff's Office routinely letting him know that the herd has busted out of the pasture and is out roaming around.  It seems these calls are never at convenient times, like mostly after midnight.  So Dad asked me if we'd go help him patch up a big hole in the fence.  I organized the posse and Russ and I arrived on Sunday afternoon to help.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day.  We loaded up the Kubota with T-posts, a banger, rolls of barbed wire, tools and gloves and headed out to mend fences.


This mule eats a different kind of feed

The rains I mentioned above and in previous posts are called "gully washers" because the rainfall fills the gully up with water and literally washes out the gullies of trees, sticks, limbs and trash as the high water pushes all the debris downstream.  Unfortunately, if you have pastures on either side of a gully, the debris also washes out your fence as well.  In the picture below, you can see that Russ and my Dad have used the banger to bang T-posts down into the gully to rebuild the fence.  The doggoned cows used the opportunity of the washed out fence to go on nightly excursions and that was going to end... TODAY.  You can see the banger on the ground.
  

Mending fences

Here is an action shot of the banging minus the loud noises.  The banger is positioned over the T-posts and then you grab the handles and pull down forcefully with blows that drive the posts into the hard ground.  Those blows are also hard on the ear drums.  You can also see where we are going to tie in new barbed wire into the existing fence:


Almost done

This photo shows just what a mess the cows can make as they've made a big trail down the bank of the gully and then they all follow each other through the washed out fence and climb up the bank and on to freedom (and the greener grass) on the other side of the fence until the Parish Sheriff Deputies spot them and call Dad.  You can see how we've run 4 strands of barbed wire and attached it to the fence still standing in order to hopefully end the late night carousing.


New fence tied in

And below is the finished product which ought to do the job... until the next gully washer, that is!


Fenced in


As we took off our gloves and drove off into the sunset on the mule, we realized that a farmer's work is never done, knowing that the cows were already scheming and planning, looking for the next weak place in the perimeter fence from which to stage the next escape.  Darned you, cows.  Darned you.