The heart of our freehold lies unprotected and vulnerable, even as unseen enemies gather around us and prepare to invade. If we hope to defend one of the keys to our survival, we have to take bold steps. We must build strong defenses, increase our vigilance, and stand ready not only to kill our enemies, but to butcher and eat them as well.
Michelle continues to implement major changes to the garden (see Scraping a Living from the Land). Several of those changes removed a good deal of the garden fence, which means our tender shoots and starts will be vulnerable to porcupine and moose predation.
Mark tries to recreate a classic Led Zeppelin album cover (Photo: Michelle L. Zeiger).
We discussed investing in metal fence posts to augment or replace our old homemade wooden poles. Some of the fenceposts are tree trunks, but we made others by driving poles cut from small trees into the ground.
To our good fortune, someone in town removed a 6 foot wire fence and put the mesh and the metal fence posts up for sale on the Haines Community Website. We went to town Wednesday and bought the whole set at a considerable savings.
It’ll take a few days to get it all home. We’ve got plenty of flat water lately, but the high tides currently are too low to land the canoe on our rocky beach. That means we haul it all. I’m switching between packing in the last of the grow box lumber, and fencing components.
I hauled the two bales of wire across the bay on my back, but it would be impossible to carry such a wide, brush-snagging, heavy load over the ridge all at once. I separated the two bales, and, turning one upright on our backboard, brought it home. Hopefully, I’m rested enough from that to go get more today.
Once up, this fence will double our garden security. Our current fence can’t be more than 3 feet high. With the top inches floppy and unsupported, it manages to repel porcupines adequately (see Preparing for Porcupine) but moose simply step over it (see Moose Mischief). The new wire is about 6 feet high. If we bury a foot of it to discourage tunneling under, the remainder will give us about 5 feet of fence. I understand 8 foot fences are considered the minimum to discourage moose and deer, but even 5 feet will be an improvement.
I’m almost tempted to make a narrow entryway through the fence so that we might get at least a few porcupine. They’re tasty enough to risk losing a few vegetables now and then! (See Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Porcupine.)