My supervisor at work mentioned that she had some rolls of fencing they had once used to corral chickens. She asked if i might want it to use on the land. She said there were two rolls and she’d give them to me for free if i could get the suv to Floresville to pick them up. It was a 2 hour drive on a work night but the offer was too good to pass up. That amount of fencing would have cost me a pretty penny in the tractor supply store and it was tall too. If I couldn’t use it to patch the fence, i could use it to keep the deer off of young trees. So i scurried home from work and loaded the dog in the car. I turned to Sili and said, “we’re going on a road trip. You and i are going to go pick up some fencing. Okay?” Sili looked up at me with her soulful brown eyes and wagged her tail. She was ready to ride. So, as the sun set, we set off in the direction of Floresville. I still had my scrubs on and Sili hadn’t even eaten dinner. We would do all those things when we got back. Right then we were on a mission. When we pulled into Floresville it was already dark. My supervisor’s daughters loaded the fencing into the suv while Sili checked out their property. They still had the youth and strength of teenagers. They got it done in half the time it would have taken her and i. I thanked them profusely, loaded Sili up, and waved goodbye. Then we headed for home. We were making good time until i hit what i thought was back-up from a traffic accident on the main highway. We sat patiently for a good half hour, not moving an inch. Then i began to get curious. I pulled out my smart phone. I googled the highway we were sitting on and attached the words “traffic accident”. The search produced nothing. The semi driver in front of me turned off his truck. Then the van to the left of me did the same thing. The words came out of my mouth in slow motion as i realized what was going on, “oh no”. The highway was closed. It was not a traffic accident. It was planned and scheduled construction. My smart phone confirmed. The phone indicated that there would be a detour, but people don’t always do what google says they did. There was no detour. It was beginning to look like we were sleeping in the car. I had plenty of gas and a little water. I used chewing gum in place of brushing my teeth and made a pillow out of a wadded up jacket. However, i did have to pee. The highway was shut down. Nobody was going anywhere. So, i got out of the car, opened the back door, and grabbed one of the ozarka gallon water jugs. I drank some, gave Sili some, and poured the rest in the grass. Once the jug was empty i used a box cutter to take the sloped top portion off. I always kept a roll of emergency toilet paper tucked in the cubby in the wall of the trunk. I retrieved that and climbed into the car where i peed in my home-made travel potty, tied my spent tp into an HEB bag, and emptied my ozarka jug into the grass alongside the car. Vwalah! Problem solved. I made a little pillow for Sili out of my purse on the passenger seat and reclined the driver’s seat. I cracked the windows a tad and we went to sleep. I was awoken by the sound of a truck horn. Hours later they reopened the highway and the semi behind me wanted me to move. I turned the car on and hurriedly shifted into drive. The highway was open and we were going home! When we finally arrived at the property i was so exhausted i left the fencing in the trunk. In fact, i left it there for a couple days. Then one morning i decided it was the time to get the fence rolls out of the car.
They were a lot heavier than i thought they’d be. It had taken two strapping young people to put them in the trunk. Now one tired 30 year old would need to get them out. I picked a spot for them behind a mulch pile in a flat area near the fence. I backed the car up to the spot, put it in park, and opened the trunk door. Then i climbed into the trunk and pulled one of the rolls, inch by inch, until it was sticking out of the trunk enough to tilt towards the ground. Eventually the thing just ended up on the grass where i dragged it the rest of the way towards the designated spot i had picked out. Then i climbed back into the trunk and repeated those steps for the second roll of fencing. Once they were out of the trunk and on the land i dusted my hands, closed the trunk, and drove the car back to the house. We now had fencing.