Having sheep or any other animal that grazes pasture requires a fence, a good fence. On our farm, the fence that perimeters the pasture is old, actually ancient and decrepit. It has been jimmied in so many different ways for as long as my grandfather had sheep. The original fence was probably first put up in the 1950s and was built with wood posts, barbed wire and tencil fencing wire. Not sure on that but that’s what’s on it now and it looks over 60 years old. Though the wood posts were slowly replaced by ugly steel posts over the years due to weathered and rotten wood.

So the other day, I took the old 6080 Allis Chalmers tractor out with wire, barbed wire, a hammer and wire cutters to fix the fence where the sheep could possibly get out. What I discovered was that the sheep could easily jump over the fence and that it was really of no good at all. So, a farm management decision had to be made. Do I invest in a 2-mile long new fence and keep the sheep to pay for it, which may take more than 10 years to break even OR do I mend the areas that need it most, hope the sheep stay dumb to not figure out they can jump over it and get out of the lambing business that doesn’t make much money anyway.

I decided on the latter, for now that is.

The tool is an old fashioned wire cutter specifically made for making fences. It cuts wire, crimps wire, and clamps onto wire. Why can’t they make things that simple and efficient anymore?

A friend in the field. Let’s hope it’s not a corn eating pest, it’s too pretty.