More snippets of writing

The person who wants to represent my first book wants me to turn it into a novel. I am really struggling with relinquishing my voice, changing my story. So, dammit, i am not gonna do it. It may mean no big lucrative book deal or movie rights, but it will mean that I have my voice. Am I being crazy? Before you answer that, my big sister is on my side!

Here's a bit about working on the farm:

Fixing the fence was an unending task whenever there was a free moment. The pasture fences always needed repair, and the mown fields were converted into temporary pastures. Minnesota blizzards often push fence posts horizontally, pulling rusty staples off the wires. Fencing sheep in new areas of the groves and pastures required sheep netting. Chicken runs were enclosed with chicken wire, while barbed wire fences for cattle pastures were reinforced with electric fence wire. If there was absolutely nothing else to do, there was always a fence that needed fixing somewhere.

The manual fence post-hole diggers are tall and heavy. The farmland in Minnesota sits firmly on an unbreakable foundation of granite. Shoving the heavy digging end into the ground three times would get a hole started, but it was the fourth heavy slam that would hit the granite rock and send a painful vibration up your arms. Once the sensation subsided, I would twist and turn the bottom of the digger to “get that son of a bitch out, Pooch.” I usually ended up with a hole that twisted, turned, and angled sideways, three times the width of the oak fence post.

I had to gather enough dirt from the hole to secure the fence post firmly upright. Then, Dad would take the hammer handle and stick it alongside the fence post to pack the dirt tighter. I would end up scouring the pasture for rocks small enough to fit in the hole to help hold the post upright. Of course, by the next day, the dirt and rocks would settle, leaving my fence line looking like it had polio.

Despite how much trouble life threw at him, Dad remained the eternal optimist. He always had an “idea.” His ideas usually involved more work and were often flawed, but no one ever said no to Dad. One summer, he decided to fence in the corner posts using railroad ties scavenged from the side of the tracks. Covered in black pitch and tar and weighing more than a cow, I was expected to dig a square post hole wide and deep enough to accommodate a railroad tie. “They won’t knock this son of a bitch over,” he bragged.

Dad was a man of ideas who preferred others to test his theories. It was obvious where Tubby had gotten his sales skills. Railroad ties were free and sturdy for fencing, so it seemed a great idea. Never mind that I nearly killed myself trying to dig a hole big enough, then, exhausted, drag the tie over and stand it upright in the hole. Dad always said he would help me “as soon as I finish my cigarette.” Dad could stretch a cigarette break into an hour or more. It was always exactly the time I took to finish the work.

As technology progressed, telephone wires were replaced by underground cables. This change led to large wooden spools of wire being sold cheaply to farmers needing fencing wire. Unlike electric fence wire, which is thin, bendable, and easily broken by twisting and bending, the telephone wire was thick and rigid. Once removed from the spool, the wire would immediately revert to its natural circular, spring-like shape, becoming a thick, unmovable coil. 

Bending the wire around a glass insulator nailed to a fence post felt like a struggle against the forces of nature. Transforming the giant spring into a smaller circular shape to fit the insulator required every ounce of strength in my hands. Despite my efforts, it wouldn't bend into place neatly like an actual electric fence wire. The material was rigid and unyielding. At best, I managed to create squares that barely touched the insulator, making the wire likely shift, contact the wooden post, and short-circuit the electric fence. 

Once the wire was secured onto the insulator, I tried to straighten the circular spring shape into a straight line leading to the next leaning fence post. If it weren't straightened out, it would sag and fall to the ground or be low enough for the cattle to step over and "get on the road." Cattle on the road was a sin that no one wanted to be caught committing. Not only would it be an example of embarrassing laziness in fencing, but if a cow was hit, the driver could sue the owner.

Pulling the inflexible, coiled spring straight, I held it as firmly as possible while wrapping it around the next white glass insulator. I repeated this process for about a dozen fence posts along the fence line before taking a break. Taking a moment of relaxation and looking back on my work, the telephone wire sprang back into a circular shape. First, I heard a slight creaking noise, followed by a sharp whistle as the wire reverted to a tightly wound coil.

Pieces of wire shot off the insulator, accompanied by a screeching sound as it was yanked from the fence post. With each twang and screech, I had to duck to avoid the flying nails, insulators, and wire. Dad found it hilarious as he sat on the tailgate of the old farm truck, watching the chaos unfold.

It wasn’t as dangerous as using staples to attach the wire directly to the fence post. When we didn't intend to run electricity through a temporary fence, we used staples to hold the wire. It would have been easy if we had new staples to pound into the wooden fence posts.

I don’t think I have ever seen a new, unused staple outside of a hardware store. If we were going to staple a fence line, it meant digging through the shop and the kitchen junk drawer to find staples. Lessons from the Great Depression taught Mom and Dad to reuse everything.

Pulling out staples from jars of nails and screws or the junk drawer, they were inevitably bent from being pounded into the wood repeatedly over the years. A hammer was used to tap the staples back into a semblance of their original shape, with the concrete front steps serving as the anvil. Those poor rusty, bent staples never stood a chance against the telephone wire. When five or six fence posts were attached to the telephone wire, and the fence was tightened, nature would take over; the wire would revert to its natural shape, pulling the staples out of the wood with the velocity of a bullet.

At the first screech, it became instinctive for me to throw myself onto the ground and hold my breath. Dad would then point out that this would never have happened if I had done it right the first time. His lecture on the “right way” and “I could have told you this would happen” would continue while I searched through the weeds and grass to find the staples and start over. Angry as I was, I didn’t dare interrupt the lecture. But I wondered if he “could have told” me that this “would happen,” then why didn’t he tell me? Was this one of Newton’s Laws of Physics: Wire will revert to its natural shape? I eventually learned to find the exact wiring level, not too saggy or tight.

Fencing for sheep was a special form of hell. Mom and Dad would buy used rolls of sheep netting at auctions, small squares of fencing in rusty rolls. The squares were large enough for a sheep to put its head through but not pull it back out. The rolled shape was unnatural, with the square shapes causing the bottom ends to bend upward into a permanent fold. My job was always to stand on the bottom of the wire, my shoes through the squares, and pull the netting fence upright toward my chin. If the rusted bottom wire snapped, I would jab my fists into my jaw, rattling my teeth and bruising my chin.