Do you know that rhyme?
“For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.”
It’s a nursery rhyme possibly connected to the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, during which Britain’s King Richard III lost his life. I could relate somewhat to the chain of events, though on a far humbler scale, as I began the onerous task of repairing the long back gate to our Etseri village property, near the barn.
This gate had withstood a few winters, but with recent comings and goings of what in Britain is called “heavy plant” and in North America something more like “large machinery” (in this case, trucks and a digger) had taken its toll. Once the departing workers left it open, or more correctly fallen over, and cows began wandering in to sample our backyard’s magnificent foliage, all without making a sound. I was in the bedroom at the time of their incursion, with the window open, and heard not a sound; they didn’t moo even once to give themselves away, the sneaky creatures. Guilty conscience? When my wife looked out and saw them, of course I booted up and took off out there on the double, stick in hand, having made sure in advance that there was an exit for them all. Yes, so I charged them in fury, getting only a whack or two in before they retreated. Prop up the gate, and consider how to mend it.
Two oak posts with sharpened ends would need to be put in the ground, one from which the long gate would hinge, the other to which its other end and the meeting end of the short gate would be fixed with wire loops when not in use.
But this is an especially rocky area, and I mean some specimens too large for me to lift. One, in particular, I want to dig up, as it sticks out and gives truck and car drivers a fright when they want to enter by this way. I began digging around it with a straight bar to gauge its size and depth in the ground.
Turned out there were more than 10 other rocks helping to keep that prize in place, and it was also nice and deep. But it had to go, so I rolled up my sleeves and continued digging and prying. Rock after rock came out around it. It would budge an inch or so with all my weight on the bar (one of the ancient classical Basic Machines, I remembered from school: the lever). I dug out all the free earth around it to ease its passage into daylight, but it was really putting up a fight.
I next poured water in all around to soften and lubricate the sticky, clayey soil, realizing that friction as well as the monster’s own weight was holding it down. Eventually, I borrowed a neighbor’s second bar, then the neighbor himself for leverage, and only by this method did we manage to wrest it from its home of decades or centuries. Then it was simply a matter of rolling it away down the slight slope the outside road offered, as it was too heavy for me to lift.
I had similar battles to dig the hole for the first oak post: rocks everywhere, for all I knew leading straight to the earth’s core if I would persist. Finally, the hole was deep enough to sink the pointed end of the post into, then shovel that soil back around it; wet it down a bit; then stamp and tamp it down all around as hard as I could. When dry, this soil is almost like cement, so the post should hold fast in place. Whew!
Now, my arms and hands are all seized up from the effort, so tomorrow I’ll continue with the other post, then wire-hinge the long gate to it, and we’ll really have something. As long as it lasts, anyway: ultimately we need steel posts cemented into the ground for the long-term. But for now, it’ll keep the cows out, which is enough. Those rocks, though, almost broke me.
BLOG by Tony Hanmer
Tony Hanmer has lived in Georgia since 1999, in Svaneti since 2007, and been a weekly writer and photographer for GT since early 2011. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with over 2000 members, at www.facebook.com/groups/SvanetiRenaissance/
He and his wife also run their own guest house in Etseri: www.facebook.com/hanmer.house.svaneti
