Above and beyond...

A couple of weeks ago, someone driving on our private road snapped off two fenceposts along the back pasture. It's not the first time... our private (shared) road is barely wide enough for two cars to pass, and if someone comes too close, the fence usually doesn't do well.

Today when I walked down the road to the mailboxes, I noticed piles of dirt by the broken posts. When I got closer, I saw freshly dug holes. And as I walked down the fence line, I realized that someone had dug new holes for every single post that's been broken off by a careless driver in the past few years.

I picked up the mail and walked back to the house, and asked Dave when he had time to dig the holes. I could tell by the look on his face that it was news to him. Which means one of our neighbors did this. I can't believe they dug holes for all the broken posts (six in all).

I should explain that we've not had a good track record where our fences are concerned. The Inauguration Day storm in 1993 took out four of our neighbor's big fir trees... which scored a direct hit on about 100 feet of our shared pasture fence. Fortunately, my horse wasn't in that pasture at the time. The neighbor did offer to help replace the fence, but somehow we all never got around to doing it. A few years later, another fence line was destroyed by yet another neighbor, when he was having gravel hauled to his property. The dump truck and trailer took the corner too sharp, nearly landed in our pond, damaged the gravel road, and took out another hundred feet of our fence. And my horse was in that pasture at the time. That neighbor admitted fault, but never fixed the fence or the road.

So I was understandably surprised... and pleased... that this time, a neighbor actually did the right thing.

The next morning there were six brand new pressure treated posts, planted and tamped into place, with the field fencing stapled in place.

We may never know who did this for us. But I think they'll know how much we appreciate what they did.

It is good to remember that there are decent people in the world... and I like knowing that people can still surprise me.