Coop's Corner: My Annual Game Of 'Chicken'

Saturday, November 24, 2012

My Annual Game Of 'Chicken'

Today was finally the day. The snow fence section along our most vulnerable section of driveway is up. This low spot is very prone to the accumulation of blowing snow and the fence loosely catches the blowing flakes, slows them down and piles them up on the leeward side rather than letting them build up on the driveway.

A short number of weeks ago, there was an almost record-setting crop of corn on this ground, of course preventing a bright orange fence from being erected. Once the crop is gone, more years than not, fall field work and the fence would be in the way for that. Depending on whether the year's crop was corn or soybeans, a late fall application of anhydrous ammonia may get knifed in; our farmer always says that he'd just drive around my fence if it's in his way but I do my best to wait until he's finished.

So, nothing happens until the farm operations have been completed. Today the wind was only about 5mph according to the weather man and that's about as windy as it can be to do a reasonable job of erecting what is essentially a big 100' long sail. I had hoped to put the fence up yesterday but the winds were gusting to almost 30mph.......hopeless fence building conditions. Of course last weekend would have been ideal but I had Major Riding to do then, a simple matter of priorities.

The last hindrance to snowfence building is frozen ground. Frost an inch or so deep is still easy to penetrate with the T Posts but if the soil is frozen any deeper, the posts not only pound hard but the welded anchor plates like to break off once the post is deep enough for the flange to start entering the ground. One winter all of the above conditions had not been met and I decided that I'd just not put the fence up..... a very big mistake and we paid for it all winter long. The driveway can drift shut, even on a day that doesn't snow; blowing snow from up the valley is all it takes, picking up speed as it moves across the fields, just looking for a place to anchor in.

A relief and a nice task to have complete on a 25 degree, faintly breezed day.

The wood lath and Industrial Strength cable ties in place.

The last section to go up. I always wait to put the last post in since there's normally'shrinkage', especially so on windy days when I don't get the full benefit of 100' of orange plastic.

Standing on the driveway, in the low spot and looking 'up wind'.

What it looks like without the fence (and every so often, even with!) after a minor snowstorm though major wind.

This was a few years ago, I had foolishly gone to work without my boots and there was no way I'd have been able to bust through the drift in the car. You can see there isn't that much snow on most of the driveway, only deep where 100 acres of open, windswept land has dumped it.

A future Marine and a Corgi (Milford) rescuing me, bringing boots so that I can walk in and come back with both better equipment and proper dress.

4 comments:

Erik RNovember 25, 2012 at 8:57 AM
I can relate to the blowing and drifting! I miss my old Ford plow truck.
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Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayNovember 25, 2012 at 11:27 AM
Two things make winter tougher than it needs to be....our long commutes and wind. :)
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SonjaMNovember 25, 2012 at 11:52 AM
Ok, now I am cold. Man that looks nasty. I guess I am too much of a whiny city brat to enjoy the full force of winter.
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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)