Scott Whitby, 2023
The posts are set and ready for wire. They were really ready this time. Not just planted almost perfectly in the ground, but really perfectly (see Fencing).
There are alot of ways to put wire on fence posts, some better than others, some more difficult. May dad utilized the most difficult (and, in my estimation, most dangerous) in building fences.
Barbed wire tamed the west. It ended the romantic notion of cattle roaming open plains to find food and it provided a clear boundary of property lines. This side is mine, that over there is yours.
Barbed wire is made of 2 heavy strands of wire twisted endlessly together. Every several inches there are "barbs", shorter of the same wire twisted perpendicularly into the long twisted ones and with their tips sharpened. The theory is that if some cow gets the idea that she can push through the fence, she'll get poked by a barb and reconsider. It often works.
Barbed wire comes on a convenient 90 pound spool, holding one-quarter mile of wire. The first challenge is finding the end to begin unrolling it. The bigger challenge is actually unrolling it. Cattle farmers have designed any number of devices that allows this to be done safely, quickly, and with little effort. We avoided those.
My dad had perfected a system where a leftover dripping-with-creosote post would be inserted into the spool. The end of the wire would be attached to the first post then two men, holding opposite ends of the post, would calmly and methodically walk in perfect tandem lock-step to the last post while the wire unspooled peacefully along the post line.
I was the other man. Eight years old, 55 pounds, four feet two inches tall.
Daddy would attach the finally found end of the wire to the first post. At this point, I'd like to have thought through this a little, find the best way. For example, nuance dictated it would unroll better if the wire unspooled from under rather than over the top of the roll. We were not nuanced people.
The first thing I noticed was that I couldn't do it. It was too heavy and my arms were the size of the skinny end of a baseball bat. I couldn't hold it high enough and I couldn't walk as fast as him. We'd have to rethink how best to do this, probably using a regular size man or one of my older brothers.
Dad never broke stride.
I solved the weight problem by letting my end of the post slide into the bends of my elbows. I could hold it there all day. Now all I had to do was walk as fast as him and hold it high enough to keep the spool in the middle of the post, where it was safer.
As soon as things seemed to be going okay, he'd walk a little faster. This would cause the spool to unwind in fits and pauses. As I tired, my arms would fall lower than his and I would slow a half step. This caused the wildly spinning 90 pound mass of barbs to inch toward me. My dad, always so ready with practical advice would say, "You better keep up! It'll get on you!".
Once unspooled, the wire had to be stretched tightly else the odds of keeping the cows in worsened. This was done with a "fence stretcher". Ours was one passed down through generations. It had a long wooden handle with a rusted clasp that held the wire then would be wedged against the end post like a lever and pulled so that the wire would tighten.
As it was stretched, the wire would first moan then make successively higher pitched pinging sounds until just before it would break. At that point, we'd realize the hammer was at the starting post, the other end. It was always me who'd "run and git it". Back and at peak exhaustion, I would hold the stretcher in position while he hammered the wire securely to the post. I imagined the whole time what spoils of me would remain if the wire broke.
He'd hammer the wires against the middle posts back to the original starting place. We only had the one hammer so I'd rest my arms. Once there, I'd have to run back and get the partially used spool and we'd do it all again...again leaving the hammer behind.
Just four more strands to go.
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