I am not necessarily convinced that “good fences make good neighbors” as suggested by the narrator’s neighbor in Robert Frost’s poem, “Mending Wall.” That all depends on the will of those who share the fence, and of those who built it, and for what purpose. Here in South Dakota the general rule in rural life holds that those who share a fence share its repair responsibilities and maintenance costs. The ordinary way to do this has the neighbors start in the middle of the shared fence from their own side and work to their right. Any major inequities, such as water crossings, that are only on one side of the fence’s middle, can and should also be shared, in such a manner as the neighbors deem fair.
Sometimes a property or the responsibility of/to a property is shared not only by private individuals but also by one or more agencies or entities. These entities do not necessarily abide by the rules of common interest and courtesy. A private owner simply surveys the repairs to be done, acquires the materials, manpower, and time, and does the job. The other agencies may need to file requisitions to receive appropriations for materials, manpower, and time. There is a mountain of red-tape resulting from such fiscal complications, which places the burden altogether on the private neighbors with little or no opportunity for restitution.
The difficulty in this case is that agencies often have minimal tolerance if the private owners’ livestock crosses the fence, which forces the private owners to accept responsibility for a fence that should rightfully be shared.
Sometimes the case can be complicated in another way. If the neighbors have different kinds of livestock that require different kinds of fences (three wire or woven wire or five wire), the material cost to one of the principals may become more than that person would have had to pay on his or her own. The person who needs the five wire fence has the obligation to provide the additional materials to make the three wire into a five wire barrier. That is only fair. The subsequent maintenance costs then need not be extravagant for either party.
This nation has just endured another mid-term election. Two neighbors sharing a common boundary have met somewhere along that boundary and decided, rather than to repair the fence, to throw accusatory stones at one another, blaming one another about whose responsibility for and the method of fixing the broken fence. A third party has presented itself to hurl accusations at both the original parties with claims that neither of them can nor will succeed in the repair job at hand.
The poor fence, lying tangled and in disrepair, and the livestock, almost dumbfounded on either side of the fence and who have themselves respected the fence for what it once stood, seem confused and anxious that the fence, the shared labor, and the mutual good of both parties, will lie in ruins while the two original parties become ineffectual.
Perhaps “good fences” can make “good neighbors” even if those neighbors are significantly different.
Comments 4
Dan, I have been following you for such a long time. I spoke to you a couple of times and actually had a meeting set up through Duane Lammers and hoped to see your ranch when I was visiting SD for a class reunion. So I watch and read and hear through Doc Woerner some of the news.
I feel so akin to all that you are up to, the wonderful grounded way you take what we learn from the buffalo, life lived with Nature and human community and share great wisdom through your writings. Thank you for that. The world needs to hear all you have to say.
My story is so similiar to yours that I smile often and watch our parallel journey to honor, respect and learn from the buffalo and the world one enters when they live with buffalo.
Here in Montana, things are a bit different and I have found a niche that serves me here, but it does not feel like the answer, the final best choice…there is so much more to share, collaborate and improve and support. I am determined to meet you one day, perhaps soon. Thank you again.
Tana Blackmore
Sacred Ground International
Happy Heart Ranch
Pryor, Montana
406 245 6070
Thank you Gervase for another meaningful suggestion. We can hope our elected officials will take heed to your message and to cooperate for the good of all. Imagine what the fence-mending observers (bison and other critters) might think if we mended our fences together! Our politicians need to hear your message. What another Wild Idea!
David
Gervase,
I love that poem. The lines that speak to me are, “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know, What I was walling in or walling out”. It applies to so many of the walls, physical or otherwise, that we build between people. Two physical ones which come to mind are the border fence between Mexico and the United States(are we walling in cheap labor for the corporations?)and the wall the Israelis have constructed to wall out Palestinians. Perhaps we all should ask, as Robert Frost does, ” And to whom I was like to give offense.”
Jeanette Hayes
Dad, I’ll drink another glass (of Boston tea) to that! Politics is like making sausage… nobody likes watching it being made but it often tastes good in the end. What we saw on Nov. 2nd is a good example that ‘we the people’ are still in charge and, as in physics, every action is followed by an equal and opposite reaction. America is a center-right country and Obama tried to pull us too far to the left and added $3 trillion to the national debt. I can’t wait until 2012!