Reading the Landscape in its Fences

Walking through the Bruce Trail property that I've described the last two days, I come across remnants of old fences that help tell me the history of this property.  I've seen fences in many forested areas in the valley, indications of the farms that previously occupied the valley; very few are left on any of the steep slopes.

These two bits of page-wire fence are now totally surrounded by forest, mature forest on one side, and pine plantations on the other.  You can see the page-wire grid is still intact here.

Here's another example just a few feet away.  Because these are at the east edge of a pine plantation, beside mature forest on a steep slope, I interpret that the view behind the fence was once field, and the fence was put in place to keep cattle from going over the brow of the steep slope.

Right here at home, there used to be a page-wire fence down the middle of our old stone fencerow, running diagonally across this picture.  At the same time, you can see how the hostas turn yellow in the fall, quite a striking band of colour along the fencerow for a couple of weeks.

Looking the opposite direction, there is one old leaning fencepost, and you can find the wire buried along the top of the rocks.  It could catch your feet if you climb over the stones, but its no higher than that.

But down at the end of our fencerow, there are a few vertical (well, almost) fenceposts with the page-wire still in place.  In our case, I assume this fence was in place to keep cattle in a long gone pasture.

The fallen fenceposts begin to decay, like this one which I thought provided an interesting pattern, lying horizontally, even though the wire is still attached in the background.

Fences aren't the only thing that helps you read the history of the landscape.  This row of mature trees, with older forest behind them, and pine plantation to the right of this photo, also mark the edge where the forest met a former field.  I always find such indications of landscape history here in the valley fascinating.

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