I don't know how old the painted markers are. The fence is rusty and has trees over it in a few places. I wonder if previous owners kept cows here... otherwise why bother to put up a fence in such hilly terrain? Nowdays it's not going to keep much of anything in or out, but it does a fairly good job of following the property line.
The ground in this area is extremely rocky, so the trees may be older than they appear.
I know it sounds corny, but - I wish the trees could talk! I'd love to hear their stories.
14 comments:
I love the way they whisper amoung themselves. I wish I knew tree talk :)
It doesn't sound corny at all. Imagine what these trees would have to say about the things they've seen. A fine conversation.
Get thee to a surveyed corner, girlfriend! Jeeez, don't rely on tape, fence, and blazes. Take it from a man who knows. Do you have an actual survey? Can you find the staked corners of your property? Do your neighbors agree where the lines run? One man I know (me) lost a couple of acres of mature oak trees because he was negligent about marking his property line.
In other news, when I did have my hard-learned-lesson survey done, the surveyor told me that many of the corners in the county were confused because some legendary surveyor was suspected of doing a great deal of drinking on the job. They said that to this day, they come to supposed corners and find an ancient whiskey bottle as a marker. It would be funny if it weren't the cause of some heated disputes.
Here in upstate NY a few decades ago, landowners were required to build fence on half the length of their boundary with their neighbors. Then the neighbor had to build the other half. This was the case even if no livestock was involved. That law has since been abolished, but many old "line fences" still exist. Ours are still in place, though not suitable to contain animals. Although they are not a legal boundary they are useful in finding the property line.
KF you're right, I have heard them whispering!
RD thanks for indulging me my corniness. :) I wish Jasmine could talk sometimes too, but I'm afriad she'd mostly be saying, "I didn't do it!"
Pablo, yes we have a survey! We were afraid to buy the place without one, after hearing so many horror stories about what happens if you just trust someone. Anyway the fence is drawn on the survey so I know that it's very accurate in following the actual property line, except in a couple of places. (One place is just a bit off, on a diagonal. In other places the last owner bought a little land from the neighbors so that part is outside the fence too.)
The corners are marked with "concrete monuments", and the other boundry points are all capped iron (and one "crimped pipe").
Oops, hit publish instead of preview - I wasn't finished! :)
Threecollie that's very interesting. I wonder if there was ever a law like that in Alabama... though I would tend to doubt it.
Pablo our boundary story isn't nearly as exciting (thankfully). One neighbor did discover that he could erect a mobile home (to rent out) 1 FOOT from the property line. So he did. Even the guys putting it up suggested that he have enough room for a firetruck to get behind it, but no... he had to put it that close to the line. Because it was further from his house that way, I guess. Anyway, it pretty much ruins any plans we might have had for that part of the property.
At one time we'd talked about how if we wanted to, we could build cabins there, make it into a B&B type thing maybe... of course we'd probably never do it, but we could have. Not now though.
Oh BTW Pablo, the same thing happened to my grandmother in GA. But she got all the money for the trees, at least!
Trees are much wiser than us. That's why they're so reluctant to talk.
If you do want to hear them, try going to the boundary corners. Maybe Pablo's legendary surveyor was there, and the whiskey may have loosened the trees' tongues. OTOH, would they be worth listening to?
Not corny to me!! I'm sure they could tell us some stories indeed! How fascinating that would be.
Your trees don't talk?
Mine will NOT shut up, oh they Pine about this and they Haw about that. Myrtle waxes on and on about how she wants to Sumac for Linden her Privet T&A(...Titi and Ash)pictures to that sanctimonious Elder Berry.
SHE IS SUCH A BIRCH!
Hmm Pete now you've got me wondering what sloshed trees would say!
Rachel I would hope it'd be interesting, but they might just complain about ants and woodpeckers and such - who knows?
FC you are hilarious! I've been snickering about that all night.
Thanks Melissa - good luck with your new blog!
FC is always O-pining about something.
Heh.
Trees talk, you just need to listen with the right ear.
We have old line fences here, some close to 100 years old - just a rusty strand of wire poking out of the center of a large tree. Yeah, they had a few cows, but I think it was more to mark the line than anything.
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