That Hurt!

In December we had a heavy wet snowfall that dropped a huge section of a Boxelder across part of the summer pasture electric fence. 

I have my woodland pastures fenced off in rotating sections so I needed to get most of the wood off the fence or at least cut so I could fence around it.

First, I put up a temporary hot wire to keep my critters from wandering down into the area I haven't pulled burdock from. It would drive my hubby crazy to see how I made the zig zag fence through the upper woods. He is a straight line fencing type of guy. Not me!

Crappy photo of a small portion of upper fencing. I had to go around some multiflora rose bushes I intend to cut down yet and some of last year's burdock.

The red line is my one line hot wire.
Thankfully, the mules are very cautious about the hot wire and will not go near it.

There is a perimeter fence way down in the woods, so if they did go through this, they'd still remain within our fenced land.

I also need to replace a lot of insulators way back in the woods. Over the winter, the deer are pretty hard on them. 
Once upon a time, our old pony mule would scoot under any hot wire fence and go where he wanted to. He also went to the line fence and jump the 4 strand barbed wire to graze on the neighbor's land. When he was satisfied, he'd jump back over to our side and join his buddies.

Here is an example of Opal who was our other champion jumping mule taking a short cut from our neighbor's land over our line fence. This was in 2007. She was State Champion Jumping Mule for mules under 14 hands in 2002.

She was an incredible animal.

Annnyyywaayyyy, back to my self induced painful wreck. I take full credit for it.

This large section of tree was down on the fence. So I took my machete and my reciprocating saw and got to work on clearing the small branches and piling them. 

I did a great job and eventually I was down to the large pieces.

I cut a V shape into the largest limb and thought I should leave it for another day. However it was just one piece. If I tugged on it this way and that, surely it would crack and break.

So I set to tugging. In the back of my head, I thought: If this lets go with all the pressure I have on it...

It didn't, so I gave it another go and really pulled backwards with my teeth gritted and a cuss word on my lips. I didn't want to walk away without the job done.

Crack!

And suddenly I realized that I was going backwards down a small incline. I guess I really figured it out when the world suddenly went upside down. I guess I tucked and rolled. 

After I landed, I didn't move. 

Hmmm. Since no one was looking I decided to assess the damages. The appendages moved without pain. So I considered how stupid my move was for a few moments. I stood up and picked up the offending limb and tossed it on the brush pile.

By the time I walked back to the house with my tools, my upper back ached and I was getting a very light headache. 

I learned a lesson. Next time, barter for some chainsaw work from one of the neighbors.

However...the fence is now free of branches!

Friday was a day of NO hand sawing and no hard labor. 

PS- I checked out okay.