Sorry about the fence.

Near the close of the year, The Globe and Mail’s television critic runs a regular “Ten Most Irritating Canadians” column. It’s mean-spirited, of course, but I have to confess I scan it every year. (Then I feel guilty. Some of the targets are just hapless TV personalities. On the other hand, the Penguins that star in advertisements for my bank really are tiresome – how do they rate such attentive bank service? Why is their home so nice? How do they afford holidays in Italy?)

Still, this got me thinking about my own year-end list. When you’re a farmer, you learn that everyone has an opinion on food production, rural life, and how things should be done outside city limits. Food costs too much, it tastes too bland, isn’t good for you, despoils the environment, etc. Mostly, I bite my tongue. Agriculture is a complex business. Responding to even one off-hand comment in a thorough way would probably derail a conversation.

So I usually let the opinions lie, even though they’re “teachable moments” – occasions for a thorough discussion that educates both participants, and helps us understand one another.

In honour of 2016, here’s one belated response to a travel story. It’s a review of The Pig at Combe, a “luxury boutique hotel” in a restored manor in England’s Devon countryside. With rooms starting at $243 Canadian a night, the hotel gets a glowing review, except for one unpardonable design fault:

“The mile-long drive leading up to the hotel is rather marred by downmarket electric fencing that keeps livestock…from straying onto the road. Wooden post and rail fencing would be far more fitting.”

My wife, Sue, read this and burst out laughing. But I spluttered in outrage: “Hey, are you calling my fencing downmarket? I paid good money for that fence…”

Now that I’ve settled down, here’s a more thoughtful response. The beauty of modern high-tensile fencing isn’t so much aesthetic as it is functional: it keeps animals off the road, at lower cost and more effectively than say, wooden post and rail. The secret lies in the psychology of an electric shock. Once you’ve got one (and this goes for farmers, too) you remember it, and stay away from the fence. Unlike post and rail, where animals scratch themselves, and push and work until there’s an enticing gap, well-maintained electric fences tend to garner respect. The benefit is enhanced safety from a fence that keeps animals in, and predators out.

As a bonus, temporary electric wire can be used to subdivide fields, giving grass time to rest in a managed rotational grazing system, and protecting environmentally sensitive areas. In this respect, the beauty is what happens inside the fence: a thicker, more diverse, healthier sward with richer soil, and more contented livestock. Properly managed, these fences can be a crucial part of the working landscape – infrastructure that helps feed people and livestock, stores carbon, provides clean water, and makes space for wildlife.

All in all, it’s really quite an upmarket solution to an age-old problem. Here’s wishing you a very happy 2017, full of opportunities for learning, growth, and your own teachable moments.

From a column for The Ontario Farmer. For those outside Ontario (or Canada), Boxing Day is the day after Christmas. My drive took me into the province’s “snow belt”, where cold winds coming off the Great Lakes generate hefty snowfalls and “whiteout” conditions. 

It’s tougher to keep track of dates as the years pile up, but I think it was 31 years ago, this Boxing Day, that I saw the Christmas star. Not the Christmas Star, mind you – not the one that drew Wise Men from the Orient. This was just a Christmas star, lit by electric light, mounted high on a silo on a farm south of Grand Valley.

It was a beacon, nonetheless. I was in my mom’s old Pontiac LeMans, spinning north in a snow squall so thick you could hardly see the yard lights in farms along the road. Other drivers were virtually non-existent. Once or twice, I saw a snow plough.

It was a stupid time to be on the road. But I was heading north to meet my girlfriend (now my wife, Sue) and a combination of love and youth had disabled the risk-management centre in my brain. Danged if a little snow was going to keep me from getting to Grey County. So after the dishes had been put away at a Christmas dinner at my aunt’s in Oakville, I excused myself, hopped in the car, found some leftover Christmas carols on the radio, and took off.

Visibility was bad. At one point what I thought was a flashing Christmas light display turned out to a snow plough parked on the shoulder of the road. In fact, it was tough to see most light displays, except for that star on the east side of the road. There, someone had climbed a silo, and hung a bright white star over the farm.

Oh beautiful Star of Bethlehem,                                                                                                                    Shining far through shadows dimmed

I was impressed, even though I could only spare a passing glance. It must have taken some effort to climb the silo to make this single, eloquent gesture. And then I drove on.

A year later, I repeated the drive on a cold, clear night. The star was back. I realized I had been looking for it, and the star had become a way station on my journey.

And so a modest tradition was born. As the years multiplied and Christmases passed, Sue and I drove past the star together. First, we were, as they used to say, “an item.” Then we were newlyweds. Then we were young parents with two little boys in car seats.

Twenty years ago we moved north to our own farm, meaning we didn’t drive that highway near Grand Valley so much. But every few years, when we were on that route, we continued to look for the star.

Star of wonder, star of night                                                                                                                                   Star with royal beauty bright

Now I fear the star has disappeared. I can’t remember when I last saw it – maybe ten or 15 years ago? Maybe it’s because we drive that route in the daylight, and so don’t notice the light. Or maybe I can’t remember the right location.

A lot can change in three decades. Did the owner sell the farm? Is he (or she) no longer able to climb the silo and replace bulbs? I wish I could thank the person who put that star up. That small, meaningful gesture has enriched our Christmas travels.

It has also inspired our own farmstead Christmas tradition. When my boys come home from university this Christmas, they’ll see the star over our own barn – one we’ve being lighting for almost 20 years. The fixture begins to glow on the first night of Advent, and shines down on the sheep and cattle inside the barn and yard until Epiphany. It’s a reminder of that first Christmas, of how wondrous things can emerge from unexpected places, and how good news travels even to be such lowly folks as shepherds.

But it’s also in appreciation of the unknown farmer who added light to my Christmas route in 1985. In this season of hope, here’s wishing we will all share in peace and goodwill. As we travel snowy country roads in 2017 and beyond, let’s appreciate the efforts others have made to light our way – and let’s reflect some of that light, ourselves.

Christmas morning sunrise, 2016

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My “helper,” assisting with fence maintenance.

I was brushing out a fence line a few days ago, hoping to make gains before the snow comes. But as the wind drove the snow down the back of my collar, my thoughts were in a much warmer place – with Allan Lemayian and his insurgent cattle in Nairobi, Kenya.

Mr. Lemayian is a pastoral Robin Hood, profiled in a recent New York Times story. As development paves over the grasslands his ancestors once relied on, the lanky Maasai man has brought his herd into the suburbs, snatching grass from cemeteries, roadsides, even the lawns of the well-off.

I found myself admiring Mr. Lemayian’s gumption, rooting for him as his herd dodged traffic and he endured the taunts of BMW drivers. “Take your animals back to Maasailand,” one shouts. “You look like your cows,” says another well-heeled motorist.

Mr. Lemayian’s guerilla grazing may seem like an exotic tale from a distant country, but his predicament is one we all share in. Archaeologists have long suspected East Africa’s extensive grassland savannahs are the cradle of humanity. Now, not just in Africa but around the globe, we’re ploughing under or carving up the landscape that nurtured and still feeds our species, with dire implications for the planet’s climate and the creatures that share the grasslands.

Maybe we’re all more like the impatient BMW drivers, oblivious to the changes we’re causing, contemptuous of the rural people who are among the most obvious victims, and unaware of the connections between our dinner plates and disappearing landscapes.

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