Don't fence me in: it's gonna cost you $$$$

Those cows have had their wishes granted----at least for a while. I drove over to my mother's yesterday. It's a 3.5-mile trip. Except for Jim Taylor (who seems to have the market on how to build a better fence), every single section of barbed and smooth-wire pasture fences is in need of drastic repair.

Bill and I drove over to our old neighborhood last night to pick up a few bales of alfalfa from our friend Howard. We observed similar fence destruction along Selle Road. A couple of weeks ago, Bill attended a meeting at Jim and Virginia Wood's house (congratulations to them on 60 years of marriage to be celebrated this weekend).

During the meeting, Bill talked with their son Leonard who told him that every single fence they own needs to be repaired. I believe they have a couple of thousand acres among their holdings here in Bonner County where the family pastures their cattle herds. Yup, those cows and calves could surely have a heyday with open range this year.

I think the county commissioners should issue a proclamation for "Fence Day" in Bonner County this spring, whereby all owners of acreage with downed fences could have some community back-up on repairing the miles and miles of fortresses that keep the cows and calves enclosed in their pastures rather than having them cooped up like sardines in a holding pen or wandering the landscape at will.

After all, high school kids could chalk up some hours of community service by helping out. Fence construction generally involves one in the know and several gofers who hold wire, clamp wire or pound staples. Seems like the concept could be a great help to the landowners who have more than their share of work cut out for them this year. Plus, it might even be fun for all concerned.

In the many conversations about this "damn winter," I've noted that we truly have a disaster situation in Bonner County and that the expense of taking care of it, no doubt, runs into the millions. Check out the cost of fence materials and labor and multiply that by hundreds of miles' worth, and I doubt there'd be an argument.

Add to that the hundreds of structures which have caved in throughout the county. Bill told me about a huge potato storage shed out at Ruen's east of Clark Fork that is no more. A short drive down any county road will verify that we were hit pretty hard---and gradually so. Unlike the hurricanes, tornadoes and floods that make national news for a few days, our situation remained beneath the radar (or snow) because of its intermittence.

A shed caved in here, a barn caved in there, and as the snow piled up and up and up, the wires on fences sagged down and down and down. It took four months for all this to happen, so it didn't make headlines, and FEMA did not come rushing in for the rescue. Instead, this spring each landowner must dig deep into the pocket and find hours that don't exist to clean up the aftermath.

Also, each landowner needs to act quickly when and if the snow cover ever decides to vamoose. After all, the windows of opportunity are short in these parts. It's going to take monumental efforts throughout the county to get things up and running agriculturally----and that's on top of the usual work like moving cattle, planting, haying, etc. which already extend spring and summer days far beyond sunset.

I haven't seen or heard of anyone locally asking for government handouts to aid their situations. That in itself is a tribute to the independent spirit and mettle that exists here. But it sure would be a neat thing if the community could pitch in to help out for a brief time those uncomplaining, hard-working people who have always been the backbone of this area.