Cow Chips: Fences--All Fences Have Flaws

One thing that I learned over the summer of 2009 is that “All fences have flaws”. This being said I learned some important truths about cows and fences. First: All fences have flaws and the cows will always find the flaw. Second: A content cow will stay within the fence, even if it is not adequate to stop the cow from going through it. Third: There are some cows that are never content and will therefore find the flaws in the fence. Last: There are not very many fences that will hold a cow if the cow decides that it really wants to be on the other side of the fence.

After spending the summer building fences I made the mistake of thinking that I had become good at it. I was proud of my fences, I was mistakenly confident that the fences that I had built would hold the cows where we wanted them to be. One of the most surprising things to me was which fences failed, and which ones worked. Some of the fences I built in a way that I thought would work. Other fences that I built I called “scarecows” because scaring the cows away is the only way that they could work. The first test of my fences came when we first put cattle in the St. George field. The day after we put the cows in the field I went to check to see if the fences were holding. This was the day I learned firsthand where the phrase “the grass is always greener on the other side” comes from.

To explain I need to describe what I saw on this particular morning. As I drove into the field I got to a point where I could see the first fence that I had built across the Santa Clara River. This fence was built in a path that I had made through the willows, trees, weeds, and cattails. Because the fence was built in this path there is a narrow trail along the fence. The important point here is that the willows, trees, weeds and cattails are identical on both sides of the fence. What I observed on this particular morning was several cows standing on one side of the fence in the willows, trees, weeds, and cattails pushing against the fence so that they could reach the identical willows, trees, weeds, and cattails on the other side of the fence. This particular fence held, but this is not the only place the cows have pushed on the fence trying to get to what is on the other side. I have not been so fortunate with some of the other fences and corrals that I have built this summer.

There are several lessons that can be learned from observing the cows in relation to the fences. One of my first observations is that many times we will look longingly at something that we want when what we have is every bit as good, possibly even better. Sometimes we will “push the fence down” only to find out that what was on the other side is detrimental to our happiness and not such a good thing after all. There are other times when we will stand contentedly within our fence not doing anything more than what we are doing when things could be much better if we would simply push our boundaries a little bit. I’m not saying that we should jump the fence all the time, what I am getting at is that we need to not let our boundaries hold us back from becoming better. Sometimes if we step out of our comfort zone we learn and grow and become better for it. Do not get me wrong, the cows are never better for getting past the fence. However, people are not cows and can reason well enough to know when to push a boundary and when to be content.