Satan's Wire

I have this thing with chicken wire. The thing being that I absolutely hate it, and yet cannot avoid it.

I think this is true for anyone who has to work with chicken wire. It's just so . . . poky. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of handling this marvelous stuff, chicken wire is cheap, flexible, lightweight wire fencing. The holes in it are only about an inch in diameter, which means it can keep out everything larger than a mouse. I suspect this is what gave chicken wire its name, since it will keep out anything large enough to prey on a chicken.

However, in light of its wretched and malevolent characteristics, I propose finding another appropriate name for this wire. My current favorite at the moment is Satan's wire. Catchy, no?

You might surmise, based on this little rant, that I had a run-in with chicken wire yesterday. You would be correct. A. put some of the sheep in the paddock near the house, so I had to cover over the livestock gate in the paddock so Rita couldn't climb through the slats to chase the sheep around and eat their mineral. She sometimes loves the sheep a little too much.

This project required dealing with a ten-foot piece of chicken wire. Among the many irritating things about chicken wire: it curls in on itself given the slightest opportunity; it snags on anything you might be passing as you carry it (branches, fences, blades of grass); and it scratches viciously.

It's the last one that really irritates me. See, chicken wire (or Satan's wire, as I believe I will actually begin to refer to it) is cut to fit whatever it's being used for. That means that every one of those little holes, all the way down the strip of fencing, has to be snipped. And that results in multiple sharp bits of wire sticking out from the edges of the fencing. These sharp bits are what scratch the shit out of my hands every time I have to deal with Satan's wire*. Yesterday's little project resulted in eight (yes, I counted) little bleeding scratches on both hands, which felt just DUCKY when I got vinegar on my hands while making dinner last night.

Those sharp bits are also what catch on my clothing every time I go in and out of gates with the wire on them, which is almost all of them. Because as evil as this fencing material is, it is also virtually indispensable if you have animals.

You might call it a necessary evil. I'm just going to call it Satan's wire, myself.

* Allow me to forestall all comments along the lines of, "Just wear gloves, you moron." No. I can't do this kind of work with gloves on. Any gloves thick enough to withstand poking by wire are clumsy and awkward and I can't twist wire or do anything else requiring any kind of dexterity when I'm wearing them. So there.