FENCELINE FUN
Today I did one of the most enjoyable things I ever get to do: clean an electric fence with a chainsaw
Conventional farmers do this with an herbicide. The interesting thing is that it seldom actually kills; it temporarily appears to kill, but then sure enough, next year, new leaves come out on the base of the brush and it’s off to the races. Autumn olive, multiflora rose, greenbrier and other noxious vegetation encroaches on fence lines, gradually dragging down the fence. And of course herbicided vegetation turns brown, continues to stand, and is an eyesore.
With electric fence, this brush encroachment hides the wire, saps the voltage, and rides it down to the ground. At our farm, keeping visible and functional electric fences requires many person-hours of trimming. If we deal with it about every 5 years, things stay functional.
But sometimes a piece gets neglected for longer and becomes a jungle. This is really only a problem when the single strand electric fence is up against woods or any place where we don’t graze on both sides of the fence. Wires that split fields, where animals graze on both sides, seldom need any maintenance.
Today I dealt with a piece about 300 yards long that hadn’t had attention for about 10 years. Massive autumn olives 15 feet tall and 4 inches thick at the base, intermingled with multi-flora rose and other bushes, had completely enveloped the wire. Since this was on the north side of a field, all this vegetation reached south, toward the sun.
In about 2 hours with my trusty Husqvarna 20-inch chainsaw, I restored order to the fence line and now it’s a beautiful shiny wire any cow can see from a hundred yards. As I was whacking and pulling and sweating, I found some wonderful things: 2-4 inch diameter black walnuts and poplars, plus a few locusts.
Hidden amongst the trash vegetation were these beautiful, straight, saplings reaching for the sun. Nursed by the brush, they were protected from deer and encouraged to grow tall and straight. All of them were back 3-5 feet from the electric fence, which is plenty of room to grow and not cause fence trouble.
As I cut the junk, I let it fall around these nice trees to protect them further for the next couple of years. When I finished, I had a nice line of 15-foot saplings outside the wire, now released from the weedy vegetation, and ready to be valuable contributions to wildlife and the next generation.
If I’d used sprays, of course, I’d have never seen these saplings and if the spray worked, it would have killed them too. Many people wonder at my stubbornness about using herbicides in these kinds of situations, but I find absolute fulfillment and joy in the handwork and discoveries by getting in there and immersing in the cleaning. With the junk neatly windrowed outside the fence, protecting the saplings, and the saplings released to their full potential, the cleaned and functional fence says “thank you” while order reigns again.
Few things are as beautiful as a newly ordered fence line. And few things are as enjoyable as getting in there, viscerally, to embrace the transformation. It also makes me sleep like a baby instead of giving me cancer. Sounds like a good trade, no?
What have you done on your property that made you giddy over new beauty and functionality?