Anne was tidying up our barn the other day. She brought a strange looking contraption in for me to identify. It was a line level, of course.
You must be of a certain age and farm bred to recognize it. I answer “yes” to both conditions.
Rolls of fencing are expensive. A roll of barbed wire is much cheaper. Fence posts are needed for either system. There was a stand of horse apples at the end of the lane. They grew straight and the right diameter for fence posts. Dad cut the number he needed and set them with posthole diggers the right distance apart. He braced the corners with diagonal bridging and larger posts. That done, the real work began— stringing the barbed wire.
Another rusty old tool Anne found in the barn was a fence stretcher. The wire needed to be stretched taut to be effective. It takes a few minutes to get the hang of it, but it really works. All the fencing at our place was barbed wire stretched between horse apple posts.
I remember bringing Dad his lunch out in the field. He didn’t want to stop to come to the house. The fence needed to be done that day so the cows or horses could be pastured there.
The fence stretching tool was old even back them. I am not sure you can buy one nowadays. Maybe you could find one at a farm auction.
Speaking of farm auctions, they were fun to attend. Going through boxes of stuff looking for a special item was like a treasure hunt. If you found it, you kept it to yourself. If others knew you wanted that certain box, the bidding would go out of sight. Friends of the owner would drive up the cost by bidding against you, then drop out just before you gave up bidding. It’s an old trick.
Back on the subject of stringing wire, Dad would string four or five lines along the fence posts, one at a time. He would measure down with his folding wooden ruler and set a large staple part way into the post. This would go on for a short distance. Then he would use the wire stretchers to pull the barbed wire taut.
One of my brothers would pound in the staples to make the set-up permanent. This continued to the next corner. Dad would wind the wire around the end fencepost and start over on the next run of wire to the following corner post.
Back to the line level. Some, nowadays, would say that my Dad was a compulsive sort. He would have denied that. “Just want to do it right,” would be his answer.
My Dad’s barbed wire fences were the model of perfection. The lines were taut and level. He would have said that he was “a stickler” for doing it right. That didn’t make him any easier to work for. He couldn’t understand why we couldn’t get it right the first time.
I am a lot like him in that way, but I have learned to keep it to myself. If I want my kids to learn, I have to cut them a little slack. I remember how it was, way back then.