When the Bough Breaks...

If the clouds are full, they pour out rain upon the earth; and whether a tree falls toward the south or toward the north, wherever the tree falls, there it lies.  Ecclesiastes 11:3

When I came home the other evening from work, I found that this tree had fallen toward the north, and as the Bible verse says, "wherever the tree falls, there it lies."  The China Berry tree snapped off and fell during a thunderstorm.  Thunderstorms roll through bringing torrential rain and straight-line winds that leave behind visible evidence of its power.

The tree fell across the fence from the patch of woods south of the property and in so doing, it trapped the two young bulls on the east side of the 'bull-pen,' their pasture.  We keep them separated from the cows.  If we didn't their amorous shenanigans would make it nearly impossible to walk to the barn.  The bulls had obviously been trapped for quite some time during the day.  They had paced back and forth, leaving the pasture looking like a muddy soup.

When I first pulled into the drive, I thought that a DEAD tree had fallen across the fence, but when I inspected closer, I realized that the tree was ALIVE and HAD BEEN full of leaves.  Those leaves had been all eaten!

The cows and the goats completely demolished every leaf that was on the tree.  This wouldn't have been a problem except in numerous searches on the Internet, I have found that the leaves, bark and berries of the Chinaberry tree are toxic to livestock!  This was quite troubling, but the animals had polished off all of the leaves prior to me getting home.  Eating "the forbidden fruit" had no ill effects, however.  The cows, goats, and chickens exhibited no symptoms of sickness.  For that, I was glad.

I got my double-bladed ax and went to work, chopping up pieces of the tree and tossing it over the fence.  The bulls kept getting in my way as they were tired of being cordoned off on the muddy stretch of pasture.  Finally I finished the job and the bulls joyously kicked up their heels and headed off into the grass to eat. 

The goats had other plans.  Seeing that the fence was broken, they breached the break and entered the bull-pen.  It took some doing, but I finally caught the nosy goats and deposited them on the right side of the fence.  I will have to get my come-along and pull the fence back out straight and staple it to the 4x4 when I have some time.  As darkness approached, I fixed it in true red-neck fashion - I used tie-wire to temporarily patch up the torn fence.

It wasn't a pretty job, but by-golly, it worked.  If you can't get it done right, at least temporarily get it done.