I’m launching a new series today. I tried really hard to be creative, but sometimes you just have to call things like they are so…welcome to the Ranch Life Tools series.

In ranch life, there are seasons. Calving season. Haying season. Weaning season. And fencing season.

I spent the weekend riding fence and fixing the bad patches. I decided not to pack the wire stretchers on the horse, but there were a few places easily accessible along the road. Because I lack the upper arm strength of a sumo wrestler, I’m especially fond of wire stretchers for helping me get the wires as taut as possible. Without them, well, sometimes my strands of barbed wire have a touch of saggy pants syndrome.

So you just slap the broken wire into one end, the other broken wire into the other, and winch it until it is tight.

Splice with another piece of wire by making a hook on the end of the wire that is part of the fence and a hook on the splice wire. Twist together.

Release the wire stretchers, step back and admire your patch job. Then? Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.