I spent the majority of last week with my family in Georgia. I took them a side of beef, freshly butchered. I also helped my near 80 year old parents navigate the internet, just installed, as well as a brand new iPad. It has been nearly 48 hours since my departure and I have not gotten a call. This could be good or bad. My mother is actually proving to be quite savvy with her iPhone so I assume all is well with the iPad.

Sunday morning after sleeping in longer than I will admit here, I made us breakfast with bacon we cured and eggs just plucked from underneath a hen. I then set about catching up on my laundry and taking some pictures for my endless sale of horse related items on Marketplace. On weekends, we always discuss the day’s chore list over breakfast and Sara got right to hers by checking all the electric fencing and making some repairs. She had already taken our trash off and cleaned the house on Saturday. We had storms with very high wind on Friday evening. For those of us with fences in wooded areas that means an obligatory “walk around the fence line” unless you enjoy herding livestock back home from neighboring property. I armed myself against the seed ticks with Permethrin on my clothing and boots. A walk in our woods without at least Deet is a recipe for a disaster one cannot explain adequately with words. No one looks forward to woods or deep grass around here in summer. Chiggers? Yes, they are bad but ease in a few days. Ticks will drive you mad for 4-5 days then itch periodically for 3 weeks. I have chuckled at a few posts I have seen on our community Facebook page from those “who ain’t from around here” moving in and getting a firsthand lesson on East Tennessee entomology. While I love summer months the one thing I dread is the inevitable encounters with ticks and my annual wasp sting (or two). Seed ticks can mean hundreds of bites over the summer months.

I throw a small roll of barbed wire, 2 hammers, wire cutters, staples and T-post clips in the mule along with leather gloves and my carpenters apron. As I suspected, I found multiple places that needed repair but thankfully none that required me trekking back for a chain saw. I love being in the woods even when it is hot. It seems I find myself on the back fence line a lot in the hottest parts of the summer, tying two pieces of wire back together, stretching it taught with one hammer, holding it in some awkward position with my body while I drive the staple with the other. Birds chirp, squirrels chatter and insects hum as sweat rolls down my face. I am in my element, alone and engrossed in my work in my most favorite place. It reminds me of my childhood, traipsing along with my father around MUCH longer fences, much farther from the house. I learned to patch and repair by helping him–and to use what you have handy. No one is walking a mile back to the house to retrieve something that “you need.” Daddy would say, “yep, that would be nice, but we don’t have that so we will use what we have and make do.” An adage that would serve us well in many areas areas of our lives.

After fencing a couple of hours I cut the grass, which takes about 45 minutes with a riding mower and does not include the trim work Sara will come behind me and do with a push mower and weed eater. Meanwhile, Sara found that the tall grass was pulling down the power on the electric fence so she was weed eating while I was fencing. That is very hot and hard work and my back thanks her for always doing it. I then heard her newly tuned up motorcycle go by and knew she was going to the store to get some vegetables to accompany our delicious Winged Elm Farm pork roast we had for dinner. I also did a little bush hogging and finished out my afternoon with getting fresh water for the chickens, feeding weaned calves and cleaning the horse stalls, which I do every evening. At last a shower and bourbon beverage on the porch before enjoying the wonderful supper Sara prepared. It was a great day.