Rehabilitation

We recently purchased a piece of property that had been somewhat neglected for many years.  Much of the pasture has been allowed to be overtaken by trees and brush.  The fences are in extreme disrepair and grown up with trees and small shrubs.  The corral is still in decent shape because it was made of steel pipe, but it is poorly designed and appears to have been built in the 1960's.  The attached loafing shed is falling down and the tin is ripped and coming off of it.  In short, there is much work to be done to get the place back the way it should be to become productive again.

It takes time, money and lots of hard work to rehabilitate land.  Some of it we are hiring done but, much of the labor will be supplied by us.  The last couple of weekends have been spent tearing out old fence.  The wire is rusted and tangled with briar.  In places the trees have grown through the fence.  Some of the trees are 6 - 8 inches in diameter and the wire goes through the center of the tree.  Upon counting the rings after cutting some similar sized trees, it appears some are about 30 years old.  That means the fence hasn't been cared for since the mid-80's.

It is a slow process by manual labor.  I could hire a bulldozer to come in and push it all up in a big pile and burn, then bury the mess.  I don't really want to do that if I can avoid it.  Instead, we are cutting the wire out of the tangle so that it can be hauled to the scrap yard.  Some of the bigger trees will become firewood.  The T-posts are too rusted to re-use so they also will go to the scrap yard.  The smaller brush will be piled and burned.

Needless to say, I don't have to worry about going to the gym for exercise.  I am getting it in abundance clearing fence lines.  The physical labor is good for me.  After all, I am like most of us in that I have probably neglected my own physical condition, much like the fence has been neglected.  I wonder if I can get back to the shape I was in 30 years ago!  I doubt it, but I am certain I can be better than I am. 

The one thing not clear in this photo is that everything -- and I mean everything -- has thorns.  Most of the trees are black locust.  Google it.  The thorns are big as nails.  Tangled through everything is a plant called green briar.  Mixed in with those are dewberry vines and primrose -- all with thorns.  And there are other trees and shrubs that I have yet to identify -- also covered with thorns.