Small Steps

Sometimes you just have to admire the neighbor's...ahem...uh...fences.  Yeah, their fences.

Of course, it sometimes takes really good fences to keep in the livestock.  It's a trade off, I suppose.  Oh, and his pasture looks to be in good shape too!

There are cattlemen, there are grass farmers, mechanical whizzes and occasionally, truly good ranchers that seem to put it all together.  It doesn't usually work that way, though.

I shouldn't be talking.  There are plenty of opportunities for improvement on our place -- like my gates.  It seems no matter how hard I work at it, I can't keep the gates hanging straight.  Maybe I should blame it on the soil.  We have a clay pan underlying our pastures and it tends to swell and shrink depending on moisture and heat.  When the ground moves, so do fence posts.  It means constant adjusting, or in time, some gates will drag and some will rise up.  It's a never-ending battle.

I've been told my brace posts are too close.  I've also been told they are too far away.  I just ignore it and let them be until it gets so bad I have to deal with the problem.  Really, that's not quite true; I am constantly working on things and the improvements show.  I just take it in little bites -- one small thing at a time.

My fences really aren't that bad; they just aren't quite perfect.  They remind me that I'm not either, but I'm working on it -- a little at a time.

We all have areas where we need to improve.  When we recognize them, we need to begin the process of correcting them.  Small, incremental steps are usually the best approach.