December 3, 2012 – Mulberry Mess

One of the least-beloved jobs on the farm is cutting mulberries out of fences. This year was worse than usual since I wasn’t cutting them all summer as supplemental browse to the goats.  Even worse that cutting mulberry out of fences, is paying for your own “I’ll get to that tomorrow” mess when you leave a roll of wire with a mulberry tree growing up through it for a number of years.

In this picture I’ve already hacked off the branches that protrude outside the wire (it’s about the 3rd time I’ve managed to do that).  Now it is time to release the wire from the multiple stumps.

But wait, there’s more.  In addition to being armed with wire cutters, saw, and pruners, this job requires poor memory so you repeatedly bang your head against a branch from an adjacent tree that is about 2 inches closer to the ground than your head.  This as you unwind the wire and circle around repeatedly.

But wait, there’s EVEN more!  When you finally get down to the end, you discover another piece that is flat on the ground, of a finer wire mesh that is three layers thick.  Now, all the wire is cut, heaved, and wrestled out of the ground and now just needs to be collapsed and sent out for recycling.  But all-in-all a bonus activity on an early December day in the 60’s.

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