Barbed wire has no friends....

For at least 40 years the farm that our land was once part of had been patched up and made good with barbed wire, most of the time stapled directly onto the trees.  When we had quotes for replacing all the fencing the first bloke that came up suggested we did the same... well, I was not impressed even though he assured us that that is what all the locals did (they don't!).

Many of the trees bare the scars of barbed wire that will eventually lead to their premature death, allowing infection a doorway into their heartwood.  

We promised that although we may have to continue to use wire to fence the land, we would never staple onto trees, its quite sad seeing them like this, I have to admit to giving them a pat to apologise (yes I am a daft old bugger).

We set about with bolt cutters and started the painstaking task of cutting away all the wire, there was allot and much of it is buried into the ground like brambles (I have been slashing away at "brambles" only to find out its rusty wire!).  Carefully we have collected and folded a growing pile of scrap metal and wire from the land, its pretty surprising for such a small area and there is still much to cut out of the trees.

It is horrible stuff, but used correctly it is useful stuff...we are putting 1km of clean new, tight, barbed wire back in after taking all this out!

Talking of which, Woody had a little accident on Saturday... 

Wire tensioning had not been going to plan all day but the sun was shining and I could hear the banter chattering away across the fields.  I was having a tantrum with brambles getting tangled in the slasher for the millionth time, I heard a yelp, looked up but all seamed ok so carried on...

What had actually happened was pretty scary and could have been a lot lot worse! Whilst tightening an awkward 100m section the wire was constantly catching on things, Woody was leaning over the barbed wire sorting it out when it snapped like an elastic band. PING... OUCH.

Fortunately the main impact was on his forearm, missing all arteries, veins and eyeballs!!  After a quick patch-up with a bandage he was back working in no time, but it could have been so much worse.

A sobering reminder that the work we are undertaking is dangerous...and we need a bigger first aid kit!!!