The Rural Voice, 1992-08, Page 34father, that tireless mender of derelict
fences, was also head honcho of an
animal round -up troop mustering one
foot soldier son and an enthusiastic,
but thick-witted, farm dog.
Long years ago, these aspiring
shepherds and their emigrant flocks
were seen at any hour of the day or
night along local highways and
byways, in neighbouring fields or
mosquito swamps, in the mud and the
crud of nameless creeks, up hill and
down dale. Their performances
always featured rebellious horseflesh
and beefsteak dancing across far
horizons. Then, ranging well to the
rear and, in turn, walking, running,
stumbling, falling and preceded by an
exuberant collie, comes a man and a
'small boy in hot pursuit of the tourist
herd.
When not chasing psychotic cows
and horses the recovery swat team is,
as might be expected, often posted to
fence fixing duty. In this assignment,
all hands and paws — four of each —
report to Wagon Despatch. Here a
wooden -wheeled open box attached
to a pair of recently -recovered -but -
unrepentant Percheron horses is
readied for action. This entails
loading said wagon hand over
calloused hand with replacement
fence rails, cedar posts, barbed wire,
rock pile inventory, staples,
hammers, pliers, shovels, pickaxes,
crow bars and whatever enthusiasm
remains after the last round -up. In
prudent anticipation of insatiable
summer thirsts, a large glass jar of
my mother's fresh squeezed
lemonade is also put aboard. More
about the lemonade several
paragraphs hence.
This equipage and its crew
frequently then proceed to The
Swamp with supply -wagon and
attached horsepower left tethered
under a spreading maple on the high
ground nearest thereto. Many
Ontario farms incorporate some
water -soaked real estate unsuitable
for cultivation. Long before tax -
eating government bureaucrats
discovered power and glory and
indexed pcnsions in the "wetland"
protection racket, this unworkable
low ground was often defined by its
tax -paying owner as The Swamp.
There oozing black mud separates
pools of stagnant, scummy water
from rotting tree stumps and waving
30 THE RURAL VOICE
clumps of sawgrass. Here
intertwined willow predominates,
stinkweed proliferates and the world
mosquito population visits regularly.
Here, too, boundary fences sink
swiftly into a watery grave, the better
to speed escaping horseflesh and
beefsteak on their wandering way.
Accordingly, our fence -fixing forces
were long and often deployed in the
inhospitable universe of our own
particular swamp.
Swamp fence posts, in the pre -
chainsaw era of yesteryear, were
hand crafted by crosscut saw on site.
Post holes were hand dug into mud
and water by sweat and round mouth
shovel. Posts were anchored in
swamp porridge with hand -carried
stones (harvested each spring, also by
hand, from productive crop land) that
111
•
Mother manufactured
innovative remedies,
including one designed to
shorten the life
expectancy of flying
insects
were piled one-on-one around each
hand -cut post in its hand -dug hole.
Rails and posts and rocks and wire
and other such gossamer materials
were laboriously transported to and
fro along the wavering fence line on
foot and by hand.
If hard work at high temperature
and low elevation describes the after-
life prospects of deceased sinners,
those who re -built rail fences in
mosquito swamps during countless
humid afternoons of this world will
need no further introduction to the
next.
And, whether installing swamp
fences today or shovelling hot coals
tomorrow, the condemned are sure to
develop an addictive lemonade habit.
Thus, in The Swamp, the very
thought of chug -a -lugging that crisp,
yellow nectar, a vision of increasing
intensity as windless summer days
wore on, was all that stood between
my father and raving madness. So it
was he stumbled often through the
slime and the stink and the sweat to
the rotten log on which the lemonade
jug was safely installed above the
mud line. And so it was, in the
furnace heat of one fence fixing
August afternoon, another daisy -
chain of disasters peculiar to that time
and place first began.
Burdened with supply -wagon
boulders destined for yet another
water -filled post hole, Dad suddenly
hit the skids on the greasy slope of an
unnoticed hummock. En route into
an adjacent mud puddle he
involuntarily jettisoned the stones
heavenward, one of which lazily
descended through the hovering
mosquitoes to smash our lemonade
jug.
Amid shards of glass and
appropriate mud puddle commentary,
its contents disappeared forever into
the rotting log. Within minutes,
knowing no coolant fit for human
consumption was now within
convenient reach, our thirst index
rose from merely awful to mostly
indescribable.
At which point Dad allowed as
how all hands should ride the supply -
wagon homeward for a lemonade
break and a replacement jug of that
essential lubricant. This benign
instruction roused the horse
contingent, comfortably at parade rest
all afternoon in cool, maple shade