Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.’
-Robert Frost
This morning there are dissenting voices at Wyldswood among the management committee, which consists of Peg and the rest of us trying to bring her vision for the place to life. Okay, not really a management committee; perhaps more a form of benevolent despotism. I'll return to that in a moment.
But first, I must clarify a prior post, or posts, on the topic of Peg snoring. As she told me last night while we sat next to roaring fire to share an evening and a cocktail, "It's not very flattering. In the medical community, we all think you're talking about sleep apnea."
I am not, let the record reflect, referring to sleep apnea, or anything close to it. This is not like Larry sawing logs and keeping the other Stooges awake in the sleeper car.
No, P has this soft, almost purr, when she's deeply asleep. It's sort of endearing. No need for a sleep study.
Anyway, about the fences.
Yesterday George sent a budget for fencing around the new pole barn, which he said they'd finish this week once we gave the go-ahead. Now that the barn's almost completed, we need to keep out the cattle, destructive buggers that they are.
You didn't know cattle were destructive? They rub on things and knock things over. They'll walk right through a fence if they see something on the other side that strikes their fancy---we had one do that just a couple weeks ago, pushing her way to the pond for a swim and then a walk around all the doorways of the house and office, leaving cowpie mines strewn across our likely paths of ingress and egress.
They may look at us with blank expressions that seem devoid of purpose, but deep down they really don't like us. Can you blame them? We grill their children on holiday weekends. Their only revenge is breaking our stuff, or feeding our chickens to the coyotes by pushing the door to the chicken house open during the night, or walking into Peg's beloved pond and dropping a deuce into the water while enjoying a cool drink. I said they were angry, not smart.
So yes, we need to think about a solution to keep them from destroying the inside of the new barn and whatever equipment we store inside. The little bastards would hot wire the John Deere and drive it through the greenhouse if we gave them access, and they had opposable thumbs.
But boy oh boy, do we have a lot of fencing already. Probably Wyldswood's biggest eyesore lies in the criss-crossing fences that cut its lovely pastures in seemingly pointless ways, all left behind by a squatter who occupied the property like an invading army for several years while Peg paid lawyers to pry his hillbilly ass off the property.
A lesson in there, validated by years of practicing law: it's always best to seize the property, take the money, drive off with the fancy equipment, and force the other side to rely on our creaking, overburdened court system to enjoin things back to their rightful order. That may not happen at all, or it'll take years and thousands of dollars in attorneys' fees. You don't really understand the old maxim that "possession is nine-tenths of the law" until someone takes your stuff and you petition a judge to get it back. Due process is a mixed blessing, indeed.
Ah, I digress.
We have too many fences, the purpose of which has been largely lost in the mists of the past. They're ugly. They're expensive to maintain. And George, bless his heart, stood ready to string up another one.
I didn't really see an option, and figured he'd thought about it for a while before making the suggestion. Peg thought differently. Under Wyldswood's system of governance (see previous), that means there won't be any new fence for the time being.
There's a certain giddiness about this morning, which I reckon is reflected in the tone of this post. So much loss and suffering lately, from our own family and beloved family in all but DNA all the way to Mike Leach, the "Mad Scientist", my father's favorite football coach, who succumbed to a heart attack this week. He was about the same age as me, and also a lawyer by training. I haven't spoken to Dad yet about how all that feels. Dad's having his own health issues as part of a senescence that's nothing short of torture. Mom's situation is even worse.
And the Pope says he's seeing signs of the end times, as they wheel him out in front of the congregation in a wheelchair. Perfect.
So why does everything seems so damned funny this morning? I dunno. Maybe it's the holiday season, or maybe it's that macabre humor one encounters in a foxhole. I probably never laughed as hard as I did during the war, safely home from a hot mission and laughing my behind off as I dragged on a Marlboro and teased Beaker over his gyrations to avoid the SAMs that seemed drawn to his Eagle four miles above a barren desert-scape. Maybe laughter is the only sane response.
But I'll tell you what's not sane: scheduling seven conference calls in a day, a brutal form of legal speed-dating in which I try to remember what these cases are about and to spout something thoughtful for several hundred dollars an hour. It's a hell of a way to make a living, to be sure.
And so it goes.
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