THAT INFAMOUS "BOB-WIRE"

 ICY BARBED-WIRE FENCE

There are a few things in life you don't want to get

tangled-up-with!

One of the main ones that comes to mind is: 

BARBED-WIRE.

The early farmers and ranchers called it simply:

"BOB-WIRE."

Like most things in life, it had/has its good points.

It has a poetic side. Oft have I, in driving around

in the boonies, seen old lake beds, maybe, or

trash dumps of sorts, and there would be a 

pile of broken posts with swirls of rusted barbed-

wire--twisted into coils, helter-skelter---all around--

just lying there.

Its life's job...whatever it was---was over--and it 

lay there, almost as if it had stories to tell---about

many cold winters and hot summers, when it did its

task, keeping some critter in...or out.

In the Old West, post-Civil War, as the restless

settlers and homesteaders headed that way, there

came a need for the new farmers and ranchers

to protect their crops from roaming cattle...and

the ranchers needed to discourage rustlers, and

contain their wandering livestock.

Wood and stone were scarce in many places.

Thus in about 1866 Michael Kelly, twisted two wires

together, with a sort of barb and marketed what

came to be called "the thorny fence."

Further developing and perfecting Kelly's idea,

was Joseph Glidden, an Illinois farmer, who 

received patents on a double-wire fence with

a barb that locked in place, and he invented

a machine to mass produce his product.

(American Indians were not enamored of this

development and called it "the DEVIL'S rope.")

Barbed-wire usage spread throughout the West

and by 1888 was being advocated in British

military manuals. Time was to show that the

wire would be extensively used in foxholes,

trenches, military installations, prisons, and

many never-thought-of applications, at the 

time of its discovery.

Over the decades, in the Old West, just about

all grazable mesquite pastures, ranch lands,  

and grassland sites were fenced. The big 

ranches even had wire on their outside

boundaries.

A typical fence, in my memory, was a three-

wire construction with posts every 15-18 feet.

Posts were usually buried three-plus feet in the 

ground and tamped-in good with a heavy bar 

of some sort.

Over time, if not maintained, some posts might

lean and the wire sag as well, after many

years of just being there.

I was once involved in digging a quarter-mile

of post holes, then tamping posts in, stretching

the wire, and stapling it with a heavy hammer.

My weight was only 150 lbs.,so I found the deep

digging to be nigh onto impossible, with mere

"post hole diggers."

Today, there are automatic gasoline post-hole-

diggers mounted on trucks, modern wire stretchers,

and stapler guns available to secure the wire.

If you were out driving the roads, looking for quail,

the worst thing you could encounter was one 

of those heavy-duty four-strand wire fences,

with posts close together (and seemed to be set

in holes with cement). If you were after a bunch

of quail for dinner, your only bet was to crawl

under the bottom wire if it were not TOO low.

Barbed-wire gates--- for driving through a gap in the

fence, were my "bete noire" as a skinny boy. It took

considerable strength to "hug" the gate-post and

the fence-post together enough to lift the heavy

wire loop, and swing the gate open. 

Yes, many are the wire fences I have met in a hundred

locations---plains, mountains, lakes and stream accesses,

fishing holes....and many were the wire gates---and I

can truly say: "I never met a barbed-wire gate I 

liked."

No telling how many jackets, shirts, pants I've

caught and ripped on barbs....or the "honorable

scars" my old hunting boots carry...in the heat of

the chase, of course, these things happen.

Ah, but there were lots of happy times out there

in the wilds chasing blues, hunting deer, calling

coyotes, cutting firewood, fishing a secluded lake,

taking photographs...yes, and crawling thru, under,

or climbing over barbed wire fences...

There were the times when some outdoor friend and 

I sat in a sandy road rut, leaning back against  a tire,

looking along a barbed-wire fence that went up and 

over a hill...times that we drank coffee, ate a 

sandwich, watched the white clouds billow-up 

overhead...and felt the sun, gentle on our faces...

Just think, and you'll remember something poetic

about...old barbed-wire-fences... and a lot of good

memories...of happy outdoor times!