Brush Clearing and the Fence of Thorns.

After spending, oh about a week in denial of all the branches and trees down around our place, we finally loaded up the chainsaw and went out to tackle it.

It wasn't that bad.

No really.

Scott would cut up the main trunk with the chainsaw and I would drag the smaller branches away. Except that I didn't really have anywhere to put them. Then Scott was all like, why don't we make a brush fence. Since we still have a row of old fence posts up along the road, this was a good idea. It got the brush out of the woods, and also made a nice barrier.

And it was fun as hell. I quickly became obsessed with it, to the point that Scott stopped helping me entirely because I kept redoing his sections and just went to load firewood and rail fence logs into the truck.

I entered a zone that day.

I was in brush fence zen. It did not matter how far I had to drag those limbs. All that mattered was the fence. The perfect loose crazy branches were held up away from my side of the fence by the posts. That way I could weave them into sturdy impassible barriers. That fact that I was taking something that most people were just piling up and burning and getting to play adult fort time. Really.

It was like when I was a kid making little buildings and forts out of sticks, except that now I am an adult and I can lift a shit ton more and have access to power tools and axes and shit. It was like stick fort time plus a thousand.

While Scott quietly did the real work, gradually moving away from me as he went, an idea hit me. An idea so pure, and so wonderful that I had to pause just to revel in it's sheer magnificence.

Imagine the scene. There I am standing in the forest on a cool winters day, with sticks in my hair, looking for things to go in my brush fence. And then I see it. All those multiflora rose plants I cut but never removed.

Oh no, your thinking. She didn't.

I did.

It was a process. Each branch had to be carefully removed from it's thorny, spiky fellows and then walked up along the fence and interwoven into the branches. Oh, you could get through my fence. You could force your way through it, but I wasn't going to make it easy for you.

About the time I was adding in the additional vertical supports Scott suggested we stop for the day. So we put the firewood away and laid out the rails for out split rail fence and put the tools away. Cause you know, stop for the day doesn't mean you stop working. It just means you stop working for the most part. Or you go work inside.

Look language is kinda tricky like that okay?

The important thing here is that for a whole day I got to play super brush fence fort time like I was motherfucking twelve. Even though I but the road trimming maintenance guy is gonna hate me so hard. So very, very hard.

Eh. Worth it.

So very, very worth it.