Pearl Creek Farm is 10 acres in size and carved out of an original 87 acres, with the remainder owned by our neighbors. The original owner, and probably the owners before him, had fences crisscrossing the place like stripes on Christmas candy. Few of the fences could turn a cow or horse, but they seemed to give us fits and always seemed to be in the way.
When you have only 10 acres to roam, you don’t want your way impeded by anything unnatural. Originally, you would have crossed three fences walking from one end of the place to the other, no matter whether you started at the north or west boundary! This wouldn’t do, of course. We set out to remove the fences pretty much everywhere to open the place up.