Although we've yet to use it to fork manure, the day is coming when we will put our Clarington Forge forged strapped manure fork to the use it was designed for. We have indeed used the Clarington Forge manure fork for purposes that were most likely not intended and it withstood the abuse without a single complaint. Since we received our strapped manure fork late last fall, we hung it on the barn wall until I misplaced the metal rod that I had been using to break ice that formed overnight on the stock tanks in the corral. Chopping ice on stock water in the dark is not the most pleasant of winter time tasks and it certainly is made even less pleasant when you can't locate the ice chopping tool, even with your headlamp on high. With daylight fast approaching and animals waiting more or less patiently for water, I spied the manure fork and decided it would have to do that fateful day.  

I love well made tools -- especially hand tools -- so I cringed as I drove the strapped manure fork into the ice to chip it into small enough pieces that I could pull them out. As it turned out, I needn't have cringed and in actuality, the fork pierced the ice with my first attempt. And after breaking the ice into chunks, the manure fork was quite effective at removing them. The tool was so effective at this chore that I adopted it as my ice removal tool for the remaining months of winter. Since the Clarington Forge manure fork has an ash handle, my hands stayed much warmer than they did with the misplaced ice breaking bar too. Some mornings no less than three inches of new ice had formed atop the tanks and the fork still performed perfectly.

Since that initial use of the manure fork, I have also made use of it to pitch loose hay to the sheep and to move packed hay from around the hay bale feeding area. I'm not sure that the folks who designed this fork would recommend using it as an ice breaking tool or as an efficient hay moving tool, but that it is up to those tasks and much more make me know that it is an incredibly high-quality manure fork, worth every penny of its roughly $85 price.

In a stroke of virtual madness brought on by sunshine and warm temperatures, we put our kitchen remodeling project on hold and went out to the hedgerows and harvested some Osage Orange fenceposts to support an upcoming fencing project. Since stout wooden fenceposts cost us $8 - $20 or more apiece and medium-duty steel t-posts are around $4.50 on sale, and since our farm is home to hundreds of Osage Orange trees, we are happy to trade a little labor and some chainsaw gas to gather posts as we need them. Untreated hedge posts last about as long as steel (about 30 years) in this part of Kansas, so there's no durability tradeoff in using that which nature provides. So we packed up the dogs, saws and some water in our 1964 IH pickup truck and headed off in low-range to the bottom of a steep draw where I found some relatively straight hedge growing last winter.  Between anchor posts, gate posts and line posts I calculated we needed about 15 new posts -- after sawing in the heat for about an hour we had 30 posts to load into the truck. You can never have enough fence posts on hand.

Around here, Osage Orange is known as Hedge, Hedge Apple and Bodark, but rarely Osage Orange and virtually never by its binomial, Maclura pomifera. The tree was once widely planted to create wind breaks, living fences and to provide farmers and ranchers with sufficient fenceposts to keep their respective places secure. Because of its hard, decay-resistant wood, the Osage Orange once came close to extinction because native populations were over harvested for the railroad tie manufacturing business. Lucky for us, there is no shortage of Osage Orange on our farm. I love the tree for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is that its heartwood is a lovely yellow-orange color that makes great hand tool handles.

The newest member of the hedge-post harvesting crew, George Jr. is a robust 10-week-old Cairn Terrier. Believe it or not, but the heat down in that draw had him napping on an old towel, in spite of the chainsaws singing and trees crashing down nearby.

Our 1964 International Harvester (don't let the later-model grill fool you - blame it on a deer) 3/4-ton 4-wheel-drive pickup walked right out of that steep draw in low-range and granny gear at an idle -- with more than 1000-pounds of post in the back. I commute to work in this truck -- what she lacks in lovely, she gains in brute capability.

Finally made it back up to high ground. Though it might be difficult to tell in this photo, the day was clear and free of haze, but our neighbors to the south were burning off their native-grass pastures and brushland. It was smoky out there, but that's just another sure sign of spring in Osage County. I don't know when I will sink these posts and stretch the new fence, but when I do, I will be sure to report on it here. Stay tuned.

All photos and George Jr.'s towel courtesy Karen Keb.