If You Build It

I know I talk a lot about building a fence. It probably seems like that’s all I do -- talk. And by talk, I—of course—mean complain. Incessantly.

Occasionally, I make some real progress; trees are cut down, hedges are trimmed back, bulldozers come in and doze stuff. Or, maybe they bull it, I’m not really sure. Anyway—things get flattened and smoothed, piled up and burned. White trash piles get solved. New trees are planted. Plans are hatched. Advice is sought. Fencing types are considered.

One of the best pieces of fence building advice came from an old-time, east-side, cattle-ranching, Garden-Gate reading fellow who has relocated in his golden years to Glenoma and called me up one day to share his wisdom with me.

The trick, he said, was to first build the fence in the animal’s head. In this case—the elk.

My rather vivid--and often vindictive--imagination immediately imagined setting fence posts into the (thick) skulls of marauding elk, but it turns out what he was actually advising was to “condition” the elk to respect the fence.

With electricity.

And peanut butter.

Because I am one choosy mother...

Give an elk a flower garden and she’ll be back for more. Build a fence around your flower bed and she’ll jump it or run through it or bulldoze it (cowdoze?) like it’s not even there. But put a little peanut butter on some tinfoil and attach it to your electric fence---well that’s a pretty powerful Pavlovian teaching tool if you ask me. A ba-gillion volts—right to the kisser! Or amps. Or hertz—I don’t know, I might not have paid attention in science class the day we talked about electricity. Anyway, the point is, ZAP! I have now built the fence in her head. She knows it’s there—hopefully she’ll tell all her friends.