“
I might like to have someone courting me. But it would have to be someone who is a square shooter and who has a train load of courage. And it would have to be someone who doesn't have to talk down to folks to feel good, or to tell a person they are worthless ifthey just made a mistake. And he'd have to be not too thin. Why, I remember hugging [my brother] Ernest was like warpping your arms around a fence post,and I love Ernest, but I want a man who can hold me down in a wind. Maybe he'd have to be pretty stubborn. I don't have any use for a man that isn't stubborn. Likely a stubborn fellow will stay with you through thick and thin, and a spineless one will take off, or let his heart wander.
”
”
Nancy E. Turner (These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901)
“
The grass always seems greener on the other side of the fence. Many politicians promise green, green grass by blending niceties with delusion and by using alluring confidence tricks. They voice attractive tales and tell things, people like to hear. But the post-factual grassland often appears to be parched and barren. ("The grass was greener over there")
”
”
Erik Pevernagie
“
Anytime you see a turtle up on top of a fence post, you know he had some help.
”
”
Alex Haley
“
It didn't matter if I got bitten by a dog or I ripped my pants on the fence post or I poked myself in the eye with a tree branch that I was crawling over, it was all about the shortcut. My whole life I took the shortcut, and I ended up lost.
”
”
Anthony Kiedis (Scar Tissue)
“
Brod's life was a slow realization that the world was not for her, and that for whatever reason, she would never be happy and honest at the same time. She felt as if she were brimming, always producing and hoarding more love inside of her. But there was no release. Table, ivory, elephant charm, rainbow, onion, hairdo, mollusk, Shabbos, violence, cuticle, melodrama, ditch, honey, doily...None of it moved her. She addressed her world honestly, searching for something deserving of the volumes of love she knew she had within her, but to each she would have to say, I don't love you. Bark-brown fence post: I don't love you. Poem too long: I don't love you. Lunch in a bowl: I don't love you. Physics, the idea of you, the laws of you: I don't love you. Nothing felt like anything more than what it actually was. Everything was just a thing, mired completely in its thingness.
If we were to open a random page in her journal- which she must have kept and kept with her at all times, not fearing that it would be lost, or discovered and read, but that she would one day stumble upon that thing which was finally worth writing about and remembering, only to find that she had no place to write it- we would find some rendering of the following sentiment: I am not in love.
”
”
Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything Is Illuminated)
“
God ultimately raises up leaders for one primary reason: His glory. He shows His power in our weakness. He demonstrates His wisdom in our folly. We are all like a turtle on a fence post. If you walk by a fence post and see a turtle on top of it, then you know someone came by and put it there. In the same way, God gives leadership according to His good pleasure.
”
”
Matt Chandler (Creature of the Word: The Jesus-Centered Church)
“
How often ... do we pass by a need, a life that could be changed with the smallest bit of effort? And it's not that we don't care but that we're driving so fast, all we see are the fence posts flashing by on the side of the highway?
Maybe the first step in changing the world is in slowing down and looking through the fences.
”
”
Lisa Wingate (Firefly Island (Moses Lake, #3))
“
I've nothing against people as a general rule, but people don't tend to have the sort of answers I'm looking for." The fence post just above Jackaby's head exploded in a spray of splinters with a resonating BLAM! A woman stood in the open doorway across from him, a plain white apron tied around her waist and a fat-barreled rifle in her hands. "Of course, people do have a way of surprising you from time to time," my employer added.
”
”
William Ritter (Beastly Bones (Jackaby, #2))
“
Past the flannel plains and blacktop graphs and skylines of canted rust, and past the tobacco-brown river overhung with weeping trees and coins of sunlight through them on the water downriver, to the place beyond the windbreak, where untilled fields simmer shrilly in the A.M. heat: shattercane, lamb's-quarter, cutgrass, sawbrier, nutgrass, jimsonweed, wild mint, dandelion, foxtail, muscadine, spinecabbage, goldenrod, creeping charlie, butter-print, nightshade, ragweed, wild oat, vetch, butcher grass, invaginate volunteer beans, all heads gently nodding in a morning breeze like a mother's soft hand on your cheek. An arrow of starlings fired from the windbreak's thatch. The glitter of dew that stays where it is and steams all day. A sunflower, four more, one bowed, and horses in the distance standing rigid and still as toys. All nodding. Electric sounds of insects at their business. Ale-colored sunshine and pale sky and whorls of cirrus so high they cast no shadow. Insects all business all the time. Quartz and chert and schist and chondrite iron scabs in granite. Very old land. Look around you. The horizon trembling, shapeless. We are all of us brothers.
Some crows come overhead then, three or four, not a murder, on the wing, silent with intent, corn-bound for the pasture's wire beyond which one horse smells at the other's behind, the lead horse's tail obligingly lifted. Your shoes' brand incised in the dew. An alfalfa breeze. Socks' burrs. Dry scratching inside a culvert. Rusted wire and tilted posts more a symbol of restraint than a fence per se. NO HUNTING. The shush of the interstate off past the windbreak. The pasture's crows standing at angles, turning up patties to get at the worms underneath, the shapes of the worms incised in the overturned dung and baked by the sun all day until hardened, there to stay, tiny vacant lines in rows and inset curls that do not close because head never quite touches tail. Read these.
”
”
David Foster Wallace (The Pale King)
“
The application of this knife, the division of the world into parts and the building of this structure, is something everybody does. All the time we are aware of millions of things around us - these changing shapes, these burning hills, the sound of the engine, the feel of the throttle, each rock and weed and fence post and piece of debris beside the road - aware of these things but not really conscious of them unless there is something unusual or unless they reflect something we are predisposed to see. We could not possibly be conscious of these things and remember all of them because our mind would be so full of useless details we would be unable to think. From all this awareness we must select, and what we select and calls consciousness is never the same as the awareness because the process of selection mutates it. We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world.
”
”
Robert M. Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (Phaedrus, #1))
“
I fell in love with you when you crashed into my fence post and chased after my chickens and fell down in the mud with the pigs. I fell in love with you when you taught everyone in town to line dance. I fell in love with you when you put Mo’s feelings before your own and stayed with her for as long as she needed you.” One fat tear slid down her cheek as he said, “And, most of all, I fell in love with you when you showed me that it was safe to love again. I keep falling in love with you again and again. Just like I’m falling right this second.
”
”
Bella Andre (Always on My Mind (San Francisco Sullivans, #8; The Sullivans, #8))
“
Human beings in there took turns standing or lying down. The legs of those who stood were like fence posts driven into a warm, squirming, farting, sighing earth. The queer earth was a mosaic of sleepers who nestled like spoons.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Slaughterhouse-Five)
“
Skinny as a fence post.
”
”
Anne Tyler
“
Sir? What are you doing?” I asked. “Investigating,” Jackaby replied flatly. “Well, you can’t just walk into someone’s yard unannounced. Besides, doesn’t investigating usually involve questioning people?” “I’ve nothing against people as a general rule, but people don’t tend to have the sort of answers I’m looking for.” The fence post just above Jackaby’s head exploded in a spray of splinters with a resonating BLAM! A woman stood in the open doorway across from him, a plain white apron tied around her waist and a fat-barreled rifle in her hands. “Of course, people do have a way of surprising you from time to time,” my employer added. The
”
”
William Ritter (Beastly Bones (Jackaby, #2))
“
You came into this life with a starving heart. I know better than anyone that you cannot fill it with fence posts or china patterns. You cannot fill it with paper bodies, people whose skin rips in your palms.
For some people, you will be too hard: an unmanageable puzzle, all sharp edges, and snarls. For others, you will be too soft: always looking to set up camp somewhere safe and warm where the wind won’t knock you down. You cannot build your home like a house of cards in the mouth of a lover who breathes too hard at night.
”
”
Trista Mateer (Honeybee)
“
There were wreaths of wildflowers, tokens and tributes, even a small pair of children’s shoes hanging from a fence post by the laces - as though someone believed the child they belonged to might one day emerge from the trees to claim them. These relics were all that remained of those who were lost to the Darkwood. For what the forest took it rarely returned.
”
”
Alexis Henderson (The Year of the Witching (Bethel, #1))
“
The woman must look like the weathered side of a rotted fence post if she had to get a man this way.
”
”
Lindsey Brookes (Kidnapped Cowboy (Captured Hearts, #1))
“
Obama is the classic turtle on a fence post. The faithful may believe he climbed up that post, but Obama knows otherwise
”
”
Jack Cashill ("You Lie!": The Evasions, Omissions, Fabrications, Frauds and Outright Falsehoods of Barack Obama)
“
Brod’s life was a slow realization that the world was not for her, and that for whatever reason, she would never be happy and honest at the same time. She felt as if she were brimming, always producing and hoarding more love inside her. But there was no release. Table, ivory elephant charm, rainbow, onion, hairdo, mollusk, Shabbos, violence, cuticle, melodrama, ditch, honey, doily… None of it moved her. She addressed her world honestly, searching for something deserving of the volumes of love she knew she had within her, but to each she would have to say, I don’t love you. Bark-brown fence post: I don’t love you. Poem too long: I don’t love you. Physics, the idea of you, the laws of you: I don’t love you. Nothing felt like anything more than what it actually was. Everything was just a thing, mired completely in its thingness.
”
”
Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated)
“
Almost sixty years ago, just after midnight, a few feet from the river where they danced, a wonder of modern engineering occurred: overnight, the Berlin Wall arose. It was the night of August 15, 1961. Berliners awoke on the sixteenth to this marvel, more of a fence at first, concrete posts driven into the streets and festooned with barbed wire. They knew trouble would come but expected it in degrees. Life so often arrives all of a sudden. And who knows which side you will find yourself on?
”
”
Andrew Sean Greer (Less)
“
Charles Snow had been as spiritually curious as a fence post, and Pete doubted that his father had ever changed in any meaningful way, even after Pete’s mother died. But there was an aptness to his late conversion, as though he always knew that at the end of his life he’d have to do something to avoid going to hell.
”
”
Smith Henderson (Fourth of July Creek)
“
Why were Jack and his brother digging post holes? A fence there would run parallel to the one that already enclosed the farmyard. The Welches had no animals to keep in or out - a fence there could serve no purpose. Their work was pointless. Years later, while I was waiting for a boat to take me across the river, I watched two Vietnamese women methodically hitting a discarded truck tire with sticks. They did it for a good long while, and were still doing it when I crossed the river. They were part of the dream from which I recognized the Welches, my defeat-dream, my damnation-dream, with its solemn choreography of earnest useless acts.
”
”
Tobias Wolff (This Boy's Life)
“
I enjoyed perfect health of body, and tranquillity of mind; I did not feel the treachery or inconstancy of a friend, nor the injuries of a secret or open enemy. I had no occasion of bribing, flattering, or pimping, to procure the favour of any great man, or of his minion; I wanted no fence against fraud or oppression: here was neither physician to destroy my body, nor lawyer to ruin my fortune; no informer to watch my words and actions, or forge accusations against me for hire: here were no gibers, censurers, backbiters, pickpockets, highwaymen, housebreakers, attorneys, bawds, buffoons, gamesters, politicians, wits, splenetics, tedious talkers, controvertists, ravishers, murderers, robbers, virtuosos; no leaders, or followers, of party and faction; no encouragers to vice, by seducement or examples; no dungeon, axes, gibbets, whipping-posts, or pillories; no cheating shopkeepers or mechanics; no pride, vanity, or affectation; no fops, bullies, drunkards, strolling whores, or poxes; no ranting, lewd, expensive wives; no stupid, proud pedants; no importunate, overbearing, quarrelsome, noisy, roaring, empty, conceited, swearing companions; no scoundrels raised from the dust upon the merit of their vices, or nobility thrown into it on account of their virtues; no lords, fiddlers, judges, or dancing-masters.
”
”
Jonathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels)
“
You two are the only religion I've ever had. I haven't chosen to kiss up to God and Christ when things have gone badly in my life. There are, of course, many who suffer from hunger and poverty. I've always had enough for me and mine and accepted responsibility for the decisions I've made, not interfering with those distinguished gentlemen in their jobs. I've also understood that this God in Heaven must be at least partly created by man. I guess I know He exists, but He's hardly the type to sport whiskers. I've felt rather that He speaks to mankind in the autumn colors of the crops, or in the scent of newly cut driftwood pieces that cleave so exquisitely into fence posts and outlast their maker.
”
”
Bergsveinn Birgisson (Svar við bréfi Helgu)
“
There is a tree. At the downhill edge of a long, narrow field in the western foothills of the La Sal Mountains -- southeastern Utah. A particular tree. A juniper. Large for its species -- maybe twenty feet tall and two feet in diameter. For perhaps three hundred years this tree has stood its ground. Flourishing in good seasons, and holding on in bad times. "Beautiful" is not a word that comes to mind when one first sees it. No naturalist would photograph it as exemplary of its kind. Twisted by wind, split and charred by lightning, scarred by brushfires, chewed on by insects, and pecked by birds. Human beings have stripped long strings of bark from its trunk, stapled barbed wire to it in using it as a corner post for a fence line, and nailed signs on it on three sides: NO HUNTING; NO TRESPASSING; PLEASE CLOSE THE GATE. In commandeering this tree as a corner stake for claims of rights and property, miners and ranchers have hacked signs and symbols in its bark, and left Day-Glo orange survey tape tied to its branches. Now it serves as one side of a gate between an alfalfa field and open range. No matter what, in drought, flood heat and cold, it has continued. There is rot and death in it near the ground. But at the greening tips of its upper branches and in its berrylike seed cones, there is yet the outreach of life.
I respect this old juniper tree. For its age, yes. And for its steadfastness in taking whatever is thrown at it. That it has been useful in a practical way beyond itself counts for much, as well. Most of all, I admire its capacity for self-healing beyond all accidents and assaults. There is a will in it -- toward continuing to be, come what may.
”
”
Robert Fulghum (Uh-oh: Some Observations from Both Sides of the Refrigerator Door)
“
Oh when she sang she could make a fence post cry.
”
”
William Kent Krueger (Ordinary Grace)
“
I played around our yard some and talked to the fence posts, sung songs and made the weeds sing . . . —WOODY GUTHRIE
”
”
Richard Louv (Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder)
“
After a spent day, I
walked back in a fever.
The whole way home
the sun touched my cheeks.
The blissful evening glow
spread across the meadows
and I called this light
the blood I shed.
My hot burning blood lay
consoling the entire world.
So I walked with pride--
Now that all was tilled.
I didn't know what was happening,
I leaned against a fence post,
in my blood that covered
the meadows near and far.
”
”
Robert Walser
“
There was a huge wire fence that ran along the length of the house and turned in at the top, extending further along in either direction, further than she could possibly see. The fence was very high, higher even than the house they were standing in, and there were huge wooden posts, like telegraph poles, dotted along it, holding it up. At the top of the fence enormous bales of barbed wire were tangled in spirals, and Gretel felt an unexpected pain inside her as she looked at the sharp spikes sticking out all the way round it.
”
”
John Boyne (The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas)
“
I might be dumber than a fence post, darlin, but it don’t take a rocket scientist to understand the important things in life. Love and death and loyalty. Family above all else. These are things so simple a child can understand.
”
”
Hondo Jinx (Power Mage 2)
“
The invigorating energy in fresh-cut grass and cool, crisp chlorine filled Wendell’s nostrils as they lounged by the pool in Evan’s back yard. Looking past the back fence the wild grass bowed to the playful persuasion of the warm summer breeze and the corn lilies and columbines bounced their jeweled heads, laughing and teasing butterflies. Even the Cooper’s hawk atop a nearby fence post, content with feasting on a woodpecker knew, it was a perfect day.
”
”
Jaime Buckley (Prelude to a Hero (Chronicles of a Hero, #0.5))
“
I doubt we we'll find anything," he told Jason, though he was watching O'Dell's reaction out of the corner of his eye. "but you can never let the dog know. She takes her leads from her handler." Even as he said this, Grace looked back at him.
"As far as she's concerned," he continued in a casual tone, purposely not using her name, " I need to relay that I'm just as excited as she is. And that this search is going to be more interesting that piss on a fence post.
”
”
Alex Kava (Breaking Creed (Ryder Creed, #1))
“
That old black coat he always wore to preach in was the one he put over her shoulders one evening when they were walking along the road together and he was throwing rocks at the fence posts the way a boy would do, still shy of her. But on a Sunday morning, with the sermon in front of him he'd spent the week on and knew so well he hardly need to look at it, he was a beautiful old man, and it pleased her more than almost anything that she knew the feel of that coat, the weight of it.
”
”
Marilynne Robinson
“
You were born hungry, baby.
You were born with an open mouth and empty hands.
You came into this life with a starving heart.
I know better than anyone that you cannot fill it with fence posts or china patterns.
All those replaceable things they say add up to a good life.
”
”
Trista Mateer (Honeybee)
“
I stared out the window and watched the land change like it had a mental illness. Dead and barren became spinach, chard and cabbage glittering with the pulsing spray from long-wheeled irrigators, and then a dead stockyard with knocked down fence posts and a collapsed ramp and then a dumping ground for junk cars and raw garbage with turkey buzzards circling overhead and then sudden low orchards, peaches it looked like, with migrants reaching into scraggly trees with dirty pick-sacks slung over their shoulders. And then it was barren again, looking quite scorched, and then we arrived.
”
”
Lynda Barry (Cruddy)
“
Jenny remembers what it was like, all those years ago. It was never dolls for her, nothing so tangible as that. It was more of a feeling. As if, for the first several years of her life, everything held over her a sort of knowledge and insistence. Fence posts, wallpaper, the lawn at certain hours of the day. These things glowered at her, or smiled. Even something as ordinary as the blue rolling chair in her father's office had some hold on her, some whisper of a new dimension in its puffs of dust sent upward by her fists against its cushions. There was an intensity inherent in everything until, one day, there wasn't. The blue chair rolled on its wheels to the window when she pushed it. The rising dust was rising dust. And when it was gone, there was only a knot of longing somewhere deep inside of her, a vacant ache: adolescence. Boredom.
It's why we fall in love, Jenny will tell June.
We fall in love to get back to that dimension, that wonder.
She goes to the laundry room, where, from a pile of clean clothes, she picks out a few articles of June's, folds them, then goes upstairs to knock on her daughter's door and tell her that this, this lost doll world, is the reason there is love.
”
”
Emily Ruskovich (Idaho)
“
If you were walking through the woods and found a turtle on top of a fence post, you could rationally conclude that it didn’t get there by itself. Someone put it there. Even if you didn’t have an explanation for who did it, you would be reasonable in assuming that time and chance wouldn’t eventually place a turtle on a fence post.
”
”
Rice Broocks (God's Not Dead: Evidence for God in an Age of Uncertainty)
“
Then, there was a sudden, sharp pain in the bum and everything went dizzy, then dark. A poison peppermint dart had been shot into his muscular buttocks from afar. Later, in recollection, Kid Christmas had to admit that bending over to lick the lollipop fence post with his musculus bumulus high in the air was an easy red target, something very hard to miss.
”
”
Eric Arvin (Kid Christmas Rides Again)
“
Hale was determined to transform not only himself but the wilderness from which he came—to cross-fence the open prairie and to create a network of trading posts and towns.
”
”
David Grann (Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI)
“
I exhausted myself trying to take it all in, noting every little variation and departure from how things were supposed to be. My notion of home and everything in it as ideal, archetypal, was being overthrown. It was as though the definitions of all the words in my vocabulary were expanding at once.
Cape Breton was much like Newfoundland, yet everything seemed slightly off. Light, colours, surface textures, dimensions – objects like telegraph poles, fence posts, mail boxes, which you would think would be the same everywhere, were bigger or smaller or wider by a hair than they were back home. That I was able to detect such subtle differences made me realize how circumscribed my life had been, how little of the world I had seen.
”
”
Wayne Johnston (The Colony of Unrequited Dreams)
“
From here our house looks small and perched, like a storybook cottage up on the hill, white, and gabled, and distant; and for a moment I am astounded by the way our legs have carried us all the way here, where the tracks of voles and field mice make fidgety paths across the snow between tall patches of grass, and the fat blue shadow of a solitary wooden fence post marks the path of the noontime sun above us.
”
”
Christina Rosalie (Field Guide to Now: Notes On Mindfulness And Life In The Present Tense)
“
Instead of taking a bow for walking on the moon, Colonel Buzz Aldrin, PhD, told his admirers, “It’s something we did. Now we should do something else,” apparently no more satisfied than if he had painted a fence. His desire was not to bask in his glory but to find “something else”—the next big challenge that could hold his interest. This perpetual need to identify a goal and calculate a way to reach it was perhaps the most important factor in his historic success. But it’s not easy having so much dopamine coursing through the control circuits. It almost certainly played a significant role in Aldrin’s post-lunar struggle with depression, alcoholism, three divorces, suicidal impulses, and a stay on a psychiatric ward, which he described in his candid autobiography, Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon.
”
”
Daniel Z. Lieberman (The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity―and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race)
“
When I finally made it across the dune, I found her gazing at the ocean and holding a weathered fence post as if it were the mast of a sailboat.
'That was quite a sprint you did on that soft sand,' I said, huffing and puffing. She smiled, but didn't respond. So I clarified, 'That sand is hard to get through.'
She laughed. 'It's easier to get through the tough stuff if I give it a little muscle.'
I looked at her out of the corner of my eye and said coyly, 'I think there's a life lesson there.'
'Nah,' she refuted. 'I've exercised my whole life. Lots of practice. It comes naturally now.'
Like I said.
”
”
Emily Colson (Dancing with Max: A Mother and Son Who Broke Free)
“
Amaranth"
There are no starfish in the sky tonight,
But there is one below your belly,
And there are cold evenings in your eyes.
If I could get to your house
I would look under the bed of your childhood,
The tongueless loafer without laces or eyes,
The cave of your young foot
With its odor of moon, its dampness
Coming from underground, your shoe
Which also bled and is now an island.
You have to remember these are the memories
Of a survivor, you have to remember.
You could be looking for clay to haul away,
Fill for the deep washouts of your love.
All your old loves, they bled to death, too.
Your hair is like a cemetery full of hands,
Fingers in the moonlight.
When you come down to the heart
Bring your post-hole diggers and crowbar.
Do not set a corner, a fence won’t last.
Do not bury our first child there,
Or set a post,
Although I have tasted blood on the lips of a stranger,
At night and in the rain.
”
”
Frank Stanford (What About This: Collected Poems of Frank Stanford)
“
Yale tried to say something, but didn’t know how to begin. It had to do with a walk he once took with Nico and Richard around the Lincoln Park lagoon, the two of them sharing Richard’s Leica. It struck Yale that day how they both had a way of interacting with the world that was simultaneously selfish and generous—grabbing at beauty and reflecting beauty back. The benches and fire hydrants and manhole covers Nico and Richard stopped to photograph were made more beautiful by their noticing. They were left more beautiful, once they walked away. By the end of the day, Yale found himself seeing things in frames, saw the way the light hit fence posts, wanted to lap up the ripples of sun on a record store window. He said, “I get it, I do.
”
”
Rebecca Makkai (The Great Believers)
“
Well, she’d chosen this. She’d chosen to live by the beach, as if she had as much right as anyone else. She could reward herself for two hours’ work with a walk on the beach. A walk on the beach in the middle of the day. She could go back to Blue Blues, buy a coffee to go and then take an arty photo of it sitting on a fence with the sea in the background and post it on Facebook with a comment: Work break! How lucky am I? People would write, Jealous! If she packaged the perfect Facebook life, maybe she would start to believe it herself. Or she could even post, Mad as hell!! Ziggy the only one in the class not invited to a birthday party!! Grrrrr. And everyone would write comforting things, like, WTF? and Awwww. Poor little Ziggy! She could shrink her fears down into innocuous little status updates that drifted away on the news feeds of her friends.
”
”
Liane Moriarty (Big Little Lies)
“
There was an expression on her face at certain times, an expression of unconscious joy which came from a part of her he had always coveted, a separate being he never saw when he was with her. He had seen that being in the arena or the hunt, skimming the green pastures towards the high fences, all there between the posts and over the water, winging on danger and delight, a bird soaring with a singing face. He wanted to hold that bird.
”
”
Sheri S. Tepper (Grass (Arbai, #1))
“
THE MEETING"
"Scant rain had fallen and the summer sun
Had scorched with waves of heat the ripening corn,
That August nightfall, as I crossed the down
Work-weary, half in dream. Beside a fence
Skirting a penning’s edge, an old man waited
Motionless in the mist, with downcast head
And clothing weather-worn. I asked his name
And why he lingered at so lonely a place.
“I was a shepherd here. Two hundred seasons
I roamed these windswept downlands with my flock.
No fences barred our progress and we’d travel
Wherever the bite grew deep. In summer drought
I’d climb from flower-banked combe to barrow’d hill-top
To find a missing straggler or set snares
By wood or turmon-patch. In gales of March
I’d crouch nightlong tending my suckling lambs.
“I was a ploughman, too. Year upon year
I trudged half-doubled, hands clenched to my shafts,
Guiding my turning furrow. Overhead,
Cloud-patterns built and faded, many a song
Of lark and pewit melodied my toil.
I durst not pause to heed them, rising at dawn
To groom and dress my team: by daylight’s end
My boots hung heavy, clodded with chalk and flint.
“And then I was a carter. With my skill
I built the reeded dew-pond, sliced out hay
From the dense-matted rick. At harvest time,
My wain piled high with sheaves, I urged the horses
Back to the master’s barn with shouts and curses
Before the scurrying storm. Through sunlit days
On this same slope where you now stand, my friend,
I stood till dusk scything the poppied fields.
“My cob-built home has crumbled. Hereabouts
Few folk remember me: and though you stare
Till time’s conclusion you’ll not glimpse me striding
The broad, bare down with flock or toiling team.
Yet in this landscape still my spirit lingers:
Down the long bottom where the tractors rumble,
On the steep hanging where wild grasses murmur,
In the sparse covert where the dog-fox patters.”
My comrade turned aside. From the damp sward
Drifted a scent of melilot and thyme;
From far across the down a barn owl shouted,
Circling the silence of that summer evening:
But in an instant, as I stepped towards him
Striving to view his face, his contour altered.
Before me, in the vaporous gloaming, stood
Nothing of flesh, only a post of wood.
”
”
John Rawson (From The English Countryside: Tales Of Tragedy: Narrated In Dramatic Traditional Verse)
“
No one called him Fai except his grandmother. What sort of name is Frank? she would scold. That is not a Chinese name. I’m not Chinese, Frank thought, but he didn’t dare say that. His mother had told him years ago: There is no arguing with Grandmother. It’ll only make you suffer worse. She’d been right. And now Frank had no one except his grandmother. Thud. A fourth arrow hit the fence post and stuck there, quivering. “Fai,” said his grandmother. Frank turned. She was clutching a shoebox-sized mahogany chest that Frank had never seen before. With her high-collared black dress and severe bun of gray hair, she looked like a school teacher from the 1800s. She surveyed the carnage: her porcelain in the wagon, the shards of her favorite tea sets scattered over the lawn, Frank’s arrows sticking out of the ground, the trees, the fence posts, and one in the head of a smiling garden gnome. Frank thought she would yell, or hit him with the box. He’d never done anything this bad before. He’d never felt so angry. Grandmother’s face was full of bitterness and disapproval. She looked nothing like Frank’s mom. He wondered how his mother had turned out to be so nice—always laughing, always gentle. Frank couldn’t imagine his mom growing up with Grandmother any more than he could imagine her on the battlefield—though the two situations probably weren’t that different. He waited for Grandmother to explode. Maybe he’d be grounded and wouldn’t have to go to the funeral. He wanted to hurt her for being so mean all the time, for letting his mother go off to war, for scolding him to get over it. All she cared about was her stupid collection. “Stop this ridiculous behavior,” Grandmother said. She didn’t sound very irritated. “It is beneath you.” To Frank’s astonishment, she kicked aside one of her favorite teacups. “The car will be here soon,” she said. “We must talk.” Frank was dumbfounded. He looked more closely at the mahogany box. For a horrible moment, he wondered if it contained his mother’s ashes, but that was impossible. Grandmother had told him there would be a military burial. Then why did Grandmother hold the box
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus, #2))
“
All the girl could remember was the terrible, irremediable tension between wanting to be somewhere and wanting to be nowhere. And the plant, crazed by its proximity to rich familiar soil, tried repeatedly to Leap out of her. This caused her hand to lift, holding a long knife, and plummet earthward, rooting into the fleshy chest of her lover, feeling deeper and deeper for moisture. The Joshua tree’s greatest victory over the couple comes four months into their stay: they sign a lease. A bungalow on the outskirts of the national park, with a fence to keep out the coyotes and an outdoor shower. When the shower water gets into their mouths, it tastes like poison. Strange reptiles hug the fence posts, like colorful olives on toothpicks. Andy squeezes Angie’s hand and returns the gaze of these tiny monsters; he feels strangely bashful as they bugle their throats at him. Four months into his desert sojourn, and he still doesn’t know the name of anything. Up close, the bungalow looks a lot like a shed. The bloated vowels of his signature on the landlord’s papers make him think of a large hand blurring underwater.
”
”
Joe Hill (The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015 (The Best American Series))
“
But the hawk knew the landscape; there were vast areas of it he avoided due to a scarcity of prey. Land that was overhunted—that land was the Great Sioux Reservation, bordered by the rugged Black Hills on the west, the Missouri River on the east. There, even scrawny squirrels and half-dead rabbits were precious. The smudges there were tepees, made out of fading buffalo hide, clustered together in groups, the groups too close to those from other tribes, but forced, due to the government, to live together. Misery hung over this landscape like a cloud, even on the sunniest day. So he kept to the south, swooping closer to the ground, and finally the peaceful-seeming landscape gave up some secrets. A fence post here, a clump of bushes there, an upturned wagon, haystacks. As his eyes adjusted, however, other secrets were discovered. What seemed like a line of small haystacks were, upon closer inspection as the hawk zeroed in, cows. Unmoving cows, statues; some on their sides, others standing, all frozen where they were. The hawk turned, uninterested, to investigate more dark shapes emerging from the blinding white; horses, their legs collapsed under them, eyes closed forever.
”
”
Melanie Benjamin (The Children's Blizzard)
“
In 1939, the Germans invaded the town of Lodz, Poland. They forced all of the Jewish people to live in a small part of the city called a ghetto. They built a barbed-wire fence around it and posted Nazi guards to keep everyone inside it. Two hundred and seventy thousand people lived in the Lodz ghetto. “In 1945, the war ended. The Germans surrendered, and the ghetto was liberated. Out of more than a quarter of a million people, only about 800 walked out of the ghetto. Of those who survived, only twelve were children. “I was one of the twelve.” —Excerpt from interview with Sylvia Perlmutter, March 2003
”
”
Jennifer Roy (Yellow Star)
“
But trivial as are the topics they are not utterly without a connecting thread of motive. As the reader's eye strays, with hearty relief, from these pages, it probably alights on something, a bed-post or a lamp-post, a window blind or a wall. It is a thousand to one that the reader is looking at something that he has never seen: that is, never realised. He could not write an essay on such a post or wall: he does not know what the post or wall mean. He could not even write the synopsis of an essay; as "The Bed-Post; Its Significance—Security Essential to Idea of Sleep—Night Felt as Infinite—Need of Monumental Architecture," and so on. He could not sketch in outline his theoretic attitude towards window-blinds, even in the form of a summary. "The Window-Blind—Its Analogy to the Curtain and Veil—Is Modesty Natural?—Worship of and Avoidance of the Sun, etc., etc." None of us think enough of these things on which the eye rests. But don't let us let the eye rest. Why should the eye be so lazy? Let us exercise the eye until it learns to see startling facts that run across the landscape as plain as a painted fence. Let us be ocular athletes. Let us learn to write essays on a stray cat or a coloured cloud. I have attempted some such thing in what follows; but anyone else may do it better, if anyone else will only try.
”
”
G.K. Chesterton (Tremendous Trifles)
“
Because another thing we look away from, in the killing of animals, is just how much they are like us. One of the things the internet has done is circulate, on a vast scale, short films of animals being cute. A lot of the time this means: being like us. I watched, once, some YouTube footage of a pig who had been raised by a specific human and allowed to grow old. In the clip the pig sees this human again after several years of separation and rushes over to the edge of the pigsty, braying and trying to leap the fence with what seemed to my eyes like joy: like the joy of recognition – indeed, of love. If you post links to such films approvingly, cynics – men (always men) born with the knowledge that they know best – will tell you, with lordly condescension, that you are anthropomorphising. By which they mean projecting human emotions and responses onto animals. When they say this, they tend not “to consider the possibility that if this were not anthropomorphism – if the pig just, as the film clearly suggests, had empathy and memory and other-directedness, if it was really overjoyed to see the person who reared it again years later, if it was capable of love – if the pig were showing the big emotions which we humans think make us special, then complacently slaughtering and eating pigs might become a bit problematic.
”
”
David Baddiel (The God Desire)
“
So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41: 10 NIV Nadin Khoury was thirteen years old, five foot two, and weighed, soaking wet, probably a hundred pounds. His attackers were larger and outnumbered him seven to one. For thirty minutes they hit, kicked, and beat him. He never stood a chance. They dragged him through the snow, stuffed him into a tree, and suspended him on a seven-foot wrought-iron fence. Khoury survived the attack and would have likely faced a few more except for the folly of one of the bullies. He filmed the pile-on and posted it on YouTube. The troublemakers landed in jail, and the story reached the papers. A staffer at the nationwide morning show The View read the account and invited Khoury to appear on the broadcast. As the video of the assault played, his lower lip quivered. As the video ended, the curtain opened, and three huge men walked out, members of the Philadelphia Eagles football team. Khoury, a rabid fan, turned and smiled. One was All-Pro receiver DeSean Jackson. Jackson took a seat close to the boy and promised him, “Anytime you need us, I got two linemen right here.” Then, in full view of every bully in America, he gave the boy his cell phone number. 16 Who wouldn’t want that type of protection? You’ve got it . . . from the Son of God himself.
”
”
Max Lucado (God Is With You Every Day: 365-Day Devotional)
“
… But don't ever forget, young Master Paul. Everyone has their love story. Everyone. It may have been a fiasco, it may have fizzled out, it may never even have got going, it may have been all in the mind, that doesn't make it any less real. Sometimes, it makes it more real. Sometimes, you see a couple, and they seem bored witless with one another, and you can't imagine them having anything in common, or why they're still living together. But it's not just habit or complacency or convention or anything like that. It's because once, they had their love story. Everyone does. It's the only story.”
(P. 35-36)
Then there's that word Joan dropped into our conversation like a concrete fence-post into a fishpool: practicality. Over my life I've seen friends fail to leave their marriages, fail to continue affairs, fail even to start them sometimes, all for the same expressed reason. 'It just isn't practical, they say wearily. The distances are too great, the train schedules unfavourable, the work hours mismatched; then there's the mortgage, and the children, and the dog, also, the joint ownership of things. 'I just couldn't face sorting out the record collection, a non-leaving wife once told me. In the first thrill of love, the couple had amalgamated their records, throwing away duplicates. How was it feasible to unpick all that? And so she stayed; and after a while the temptation to leave passed, and the record collection breathed a sigh of relief.
Whereas it seemed to me, back then, in the absolutism of my condition, that love had nothing to do with practicality; indeed, was its polar opposite. And the fact that it showed contempt for such banal considerations was part of its glory.
Love was by its very nature disruptive, cataclysmic; and if it was not, then it was not love.
(P. 73)
”
”
Julian Barnes (The Only Story)
“
As a further insult by the white invaders, an act of goodwill in the form of an annual distribution of blankets to the Aboriginal people occurred on Queen Victoria's birthday. The Illustrated Melbourne Post of 20 August 1861, page 9, described this event as, ‘a sorry return for millions of acres of fertile land of which we have deprived them. But they are grateful for small things and the scanty supply of food and raiment doled out to this miserable remnant of a once numerous people, is received by them with the most lively gratitude’.
”
”
Doris Pilkington (Rabbit-Proof Fence)
“
As they rode into the Lucky Star ranch yard an hour later, Liv wished she hadn’t mentioned Temo to Dayna.
She’s going to tease him about me, for sure, Liv thought and he’ll be embarrassed and think I’m a dumb little kid.
Liv remembered the first time she had seen Temo. He was more handsome than Shane, she decided, with chiseled lips, a straight nose and flashing dark eyes full of laughter. Where Shane was thin as a desert fence post, Temo was solid--strong, but tender underneath.
She remembered how he had risked his job at the Silver Spur to help them save their grandparents’ horses, how he had brought them blankets and food when they were hiding on the ranch, how he smiled when he called her muchacha, little girl, how he rode like the wind on his black-and-white paint horse, so at home in this big wild country.
She wondered about his life--why he stayed on working for Sam Regis when he didn’t like or respect him. His family worked there; that was part of the reason, she knew. She had been hoping to find out more about him at lunch today.
“I’m glad we didn’t have to stay for lunch.” Sophie slipped from Cisco’s saddle in front of the low wooden barn. “I didn’t want to face Dayna’s father again.”
Liv dismounted with a sigh. As usual, she and Sophie had been thinking about the same thing in totally different ways. Sophie hated the thought of lunch at the Silver Spur, while Liv was longing for the chance to see Temo and his family.
It was as if she and Sophie were two sides of the same coin.
”
”
Sharon Siamon (Coyote Canyon (Wild Horse Creek, #2))
“
He put his hands against a post and leaned his face against an arm. “One. Two…” She spun around and studied the yard. Nothing was against the fence for her to climb and there were no boards for her to step on. On this side of the yard, the fence only had vertical slats.
”
”
Stacy Claflin (Girl in Trouble (Alex Mercer Thriller, #1))
“
into his jeans and button-down shirt. He dropped off the RAF overalls in the trunk of the car, and then looked around him. The car park was empty. He walked to the side of the parking lot. The fence was low there and he vaulted across it to the low ground that led to the pebble beach. He cut straight across, heading to the port, walking quickly across the shrub and grassland. A line of low trees near the port fence gave him cover. He studied the wire fence. It was about ten feet tall, with regularly spaced posts, and he couldn’t see any signs of electricity. There wasn’t any barbed wire at the top, which made his life a lot easier. He grabbed the wire mesh and shook it. It was firm and would take his weight. He wrapped his legs around a post and pulled himself up with both hands, using it like a fast rope. He crouched over the top and jumped down. The brick wall of a building lay in front of him. He could hear an engine wheezing and what sounded like train railway
”
”
Mick Bose (Hidden Agenda (Dan Roy #1))
“
When you're driving down a country road and you see a fence post with a tortoise balanced on top, that's a post tortoise. You know he didn't get up there by himself. He doesn't belong there; you wonder who put him there; he can't get anything done while he's up there; and you just want to help the poor, dumb thing down...
”
”
Anonymous
“
In October of 1991, on the day I met Steve, it was only by chance that I stopped at his wildlife park at all. I had been sleeping in the backseat of a car on the way back from a barbecue at a friend of a friend’s house. Up front, Lori’s friend knew I was interested in zoos. When he saw a sign for this one, he debated with himself whether he should wake me. Even when he did, I wasn’t sure if this reptile park was going to be much more than a few snakes in little glass tanks.
So it was only by chance that I was on that highway at all, and only chance that I stopped. And it was only by chance that Steve conducted the croc show that day. Some days, Wes did the show.
Chance. Fate. Destiny.
These were words I lived by. I believed my life had been shaped for a special purpose. But with Steve’s death my faith was tested. Was it pure chance that Steve, a man who cheated mortality almost every single day of his adult life, died in such a bizarre accident?
During the decade and a half that I knew him, I don’t think a week went by when he didn’t get a bite, blow, or injury of some kind. His knee and shoulder plagued him from years of jumping crocs. As Steve erected a fence at our Brigalow Belt conservation property, a big fence-post driver he was using slipped and landed directly on his head, compressing the fifth disk in his neck. Even injured, he still managed to push on--at the zoo, filming, and doing heavy construction. He went at work like a bull at a gate. He climbed trees with orangutans. He traversed the most remote deserts and the most impossible mountains. He packed his life chock-a-block full with risks of all kinds.
“I get called an adrenaline junkie every other minute,” Steve said. “I’m just fine with that.”
One crowded hour of glorious life is worth more than an age without a name. I had no regrets for Steve’s glorious life, and I know he couldn’t have lived any other way.
”
”
Terri Irwin (Steve & Me)
“
She drove, not thinking about where she was going. There were fields to her right, a fence and a tree on a hill. One Tree Hill Farm, she knew. Brilliantly original name. As a rule the bucolic setting calmed her spirit, made her happy. They raised cattle, and normally had two sets of calves a year, one in the spring and again in the fall. She loved to drive by and see the babies trotting after their mothers, lowing for milk. It was one of the reasons they’d bought off of this road, because for a brief moment, Taylor felt like she was in the country driving to and from work. There were three vultures sitting on the fence posts, leering at a grouping of cattle. Taylor slowed, watching them, so out of place in her mind and her pastoral getaway. Vultures meant death. She glanced at the bulk of black and realized that it was a grouping of cows, each facing outward, protecting something at the center of their circle. She looked closer, trying to figure out what was happening. Her mind filled in the details. A
”
”
J.T. Ellison (14 (Taylor Jackson, #2))
“
Installing a Vertical Frame MATERIALS To construct a vertical frame, you need: two 5-foot electrical conduit pipes (1/2-inch diameter); one 4-foot conduit pipe (1/2-inch diameter); two 18-inch long rebar supports of 1/2-inch diameter; screwdriver; hammer; two elbow connectors; and trellis netting. ASSEMBLY Once you’ve attached the elbow connectors to your 4-foot conduit pipe, lay it against the north-facing board of your SFG. Next, hammer the rebar where the elbows are located. You’ll want to drive the rebar in about half its height. Slide the 5-foot conduit pipes over the rebar for a standard strength vertical frame. Or use a short steel fence post instead of the rebar for an extra-strong frame. Attach the top conduit to the legs and tighten the screws in the elbows.
”
”
Mel Bartholomew (All New Square Foot Gardening: The Revolutionary Way to Grow More In Less Space)
“
To make the vertical frame extra strong for watermelons, squash, and pumpkins, drive a steel fence post into the ground first instead of the rebar. A fence post can be just the shortest 3-foot tall size. Once the fence post is in the ground, then the conduit is attached to it with three pipe clamps. The whole frame then becomes so strong that it will hold up any weight no matter how high you go.
”
”
Mel Bartholomew (All New Square Foot Gardening: The Revolutionary Way to Grow More In Less Space)
“
He stared at me for a couple of seconds, then picked up his cutlery, hunched over his plate. Outside, behind him, the wind carried the rain, the lamp posts quivered. I found myself thinking of certain people I knew--people not that far away--how surprised they'd be (wouldn't they?) to see me sitting there with that bright, bland expression on my face, trying to fence with this nonsense. Or had I been very naive? Was this what life was like, really, and everyone knew it but me?
”
”
Gwendoline Riley (First Love)
“
Afterlife
It takes both hands to unfix the spike
he drove into the fence post, worrying dirt
loose from around its base. A spider spins
the ache in my throat. If he were here,
what would he be doing? I torch a phonebook,
watching the names and numbers burn.
I feel the fallen phone line, the horned lark
crushed in the mailbox's rusty throat.
Weevils become the dream work of fields,
the old shack set back in the tree line.
I'm tired of the corn, their fibrous heads.
I'm tired of the white cocoon in the old jam jar,
the fruit bat brimming with darkness.
Barbed wire, concrete slab, slag in the rusty water.
I walk the yard of Holsteins, dewlaps quivering,
nerves pulsing in the udders. Two miles away
the Wal-Mart is going in, barns giving way
to Pizza Hut, Penguin Point. I look across
the silent field. The plow is hard. My heart
is hard. Dirt. Distance. It does not end.
”
”
Bruce Snider (Paradise, Indiana)
“
The birds that came to it through the air
At broken windows flew out and in,
Their murmur more like the sigh we sigh
From too much dwelling on what has been.
Yet for them the lilac renewed its leaf,
And the aged elm, though touched with fire;
And the dry pump fung up an awkward arm;
And the fence post carried a strand of wire.
For them there was really nothing sad.
But though they rejoiced in the nest they kept,
One had to be versed in country things
Not to believe the phoebes wept.
”
”
Robert Frost (New Hampshire)
“
Crick once showed up at a crash site and said, “Holy God, no wonder the guy didn’t make it!” right before the victim opened his eyes and said, “I’m still alive, jackass, now help get this fence post out of my chest!
”
”
Amy Lane (Keeping Promise Rock (Promises, #1))
“
All of a sudden I had this thought about perspective. But I'm not sure how to say it so it makes sense. Like, what if there was a farmer in the field and I could talk to him somehow, like by cell phone. And I said the fence posts were racing by and he said no, they were standing still. Wouldn't that be a stupid thing to argue about? But we do that all the time, argue with each other about what things are or what we think we see, and maybe that's the problem all along. Like we're not standing in the same place, or at least we're not moving at the same speed, so maybe it's all about perspective. I'm probably not explaining it right at all. I just decided that life was like a farmer standing in a field and a kid racing down the road on a Kawasaki, arguing about whether the fence posts are rushing by or standing still. Each thinking the other is crazy or blind or both, neither willing to give up until the other sees the light.
”
”
Catherine Ryan Hyde (The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance)
“
The young man squeezed by me at one point in the cramped store and I felt, through his jacket, through mine, the hard shape that could only be a gun.
Only when Franco eased up beside me and said, softly, “We have stepped in it,” did I really understand what was happening. There was no place to hide in a store like that, no place to run. They were between us and the door. We just had to stand and watch and hope that when it started, the shooting, it would be quick and clean. But I had little faith in that.
When two country boys pull their pistols and start popping’, chances are that they will hit what they are “shooting at. They practice, blowing beer cans off fence posts, or stalking deer through the pines. But city boys can’t shoot for shit. It is why they kill so many children and innocent bystanders. They keep their guns in their waistbands because they like the way it feels against their skin, but they are amateurs at killing.
”
”
Rick Bragg (All Over But the Shoutin')
“
Against the pink-streaked sky, a ghostly shape skimmed the hedge. Nell gripped Rav’s hand as she watched the barn owl land on a fence post. Bright-white chest with honey-gold wings. The head rotated, until the inquisitive heart-shaped face stared right at them. Nell gasped. ‘That’s the male! Checking things out.’ The owl’s body heaved and bobbed as he let out another hissing shriek. Then he flew towards the barn, straight through the gap in the weatherboard. Seconds later, another screech pierced the silence. ‘Oh wow,’ breathed Rav. ‘I reckon that’s a call to a mate. That he’s found somewhere to nest.’ From the woodland, a second shriek came in reply. Rav and Nell gaped, locking eyes, before Rav nudged her to look out of the window. She turned in time to see a second, more speckled, barn owl – the female – glide past, straight into the barn.
”
”
Sarah Yarwood-Lovett (A Cast of Falcons (Nell Ward, #2))
“
I’m pretty sure he plans on killing me anyway,” I said with a shrug. “At least if he kills me for this, it was for something that matters.”
“I-”
“Tell him I came here and spoke with you about Darius. Tell him I made some excuse to get you to leave the room and by the time you came back I’d done this. Put all the blame on me. I mean that.”
“Okay…” she said hesitantly and I met her eye.
“Do I need to make you swear it on the stars?” I growled.
“No. I’ll tell him. Thank you, Roxanya.”
“It’s Tory. Only Darius calls me Roxy and I can’t make him stop, but I don’t want anyone else making a habit of it,” I said. Although at this point if Darius started calling me Tory it would probably just be weird. Not that I’d ever admit that I was okay with the Roxy thing.
“Okay. Thank you, Tory.”
I smirked at her and hit post.
Catalina gasped as Xavier’s secret went viral and I glanced down at my Atlas as reactions and comments began to pour in before I locked the screen.
Shit, what if Daddy Acrux really does kill me for this?
“Run, Tory,” Catalina breathed, real fear dancing in her eyes. “Run for the gate and get back to the academy before he comes back. If he finds you here-”
“Consider me gone.” I barked a laugh as nerves made my heart flutter.
Catalina smiled at me before ripping her dress off, knocking her hair free of its perfectly styled bun, flashing me those gloriously fake tits and leaping out of thewindow after her son. She transformed as she plummeted and my lips fell open as a stunning silver Dragon burst from her flesh.
She beat a path up towards the clouds just as Xavier dipped beneath them with an excited whinny.
I quickly raised my Atlas and snapped a picture of the two of them dancing through the sky before I took a running jump out of the window too.
My wings burst to life at my back and I flew hard and fast along the drive until I soared over the gates, beyond the anti-stardust wards where I landed quickly, my boots skidding in the gravel.
I grabbed the stardust from my pocket and winked at the startled guards half a second before I tossed it over my head and the stars whisked me back to the academy.
I stumbled as they deposited me and suddenly strong arms locked around my chest from behind, making me scream in surprise.
A hand slapped over my mouth and I stilled for a moment as the scent of smoke and cedar overwhelmed me.
Darius dragged me back through the hole in the wards, pulled me through the fence and shoved me up against a huge tree at the edge of campus before he took his hand from my mouth.
His hands landed either side of my head as he penned me in, glaring down at me with an angry as fuck Dragon peering out of his eyes, his pupils transformed into reptilian slits and a hint of smoke slipped between his lips. He was only wearing sweatpants and I got the impression he’d flown here to ambush me the moment I returned. I guess he didn’t like my FaeBook post.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” he demanded.
“Whoa, chill out dude,” I said, pressing my hands to his chest to push him back. He didn’t move a single inch and I just ended up with my hands pressed to his rock hard muscles, his heart pounding frantically beneath my right palm.
“Do you know what you’ve done?” Darius snarled. “Father could kill Xavier for this! He could-”
“He won’t,” I snapped angrily. “He can’t. Don’t you see that? The only power he held over Xavier was in keeping his real Order form a secret. Now everyone knows, he’s free. Killing him wouldn’t change the truth. And he can’t very well alienate every Pegasus in Solaria by making his Orderist bullshit public knowledge. He’ll have to let Xavier leave the house, join a herd, fly.”
Darius was staring at me like he didn’t know whether to kill me or kiss me and as my gaze fell on his mouth, I found myself aching for the latter. Fuck the stars.
(Tory POV)
”
”
Caroline Peckham (Cursed Fates (Zodiac Academy, #5))
“
As soon as they’d arrived, the odors of fertilizer and manure had overwhelmed him. They were staggering, almost intolerable, clouding his olfactory sense just when he really needed it. He leaned back against a fence post and pressed his hands against his temples, breathing through his mouth. His superior sense of smell made him part bloodhound, part pointer, and part bulldog. But sometimes, it just made him sick.
”
”
James Patterson (Holmes, Marple & Poe (Holmes, Margaret & Poe #1))
“
the life-draining drought also killed the trees that Caroline Henderson, the college-educated farmer’s wife, had nurtured. “Our little locust grove which we cherished for so many years has become a small pile of fence posts,” Caroline wrote to a friend.
”
”
Timothy Egan (The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl)
“
There were two rabbits nibbling the green tufts growing around a fence post. She tried to creep up and pat them, but they scampered away before she could get close.
”
”
Poppy Gee (Vanishing Falls)
“
Theodora, I thought I banned you from Rebel Blue,” he said. He was very obviously annoyed. “I thought I told you if you called me that I would shove a fence post down your throat,” Teddy said in a sickly sweet voice. “And that’s the last thing you’d need considering you’re looking a little worse for wear these days.
”
”
Lyla Sage (Done and Dusted (Rebel Blue Ranch #1))
“
Salon writer Scot Sea, who said that his experience with his own autistic daughter helped him understand why a California man named Delfin Bartolome had shot his son and then himself. “The odor has finally made its way down the hall. When you see the balled-up pants and diaper on the floor, you know you are too late,” Sea began ominously. “A bright red smear across the door, the molding, the wall. Turn the corner and the bedroom is a crime scene. An ax murder? In fact, it is only your daughter at her worst.” He described a scene worthy of a slasher movie: “Splashes of blood glistening like paint, black clots, yellow-brown feces, and a 3-foot-in-diameter pond of vomit that your daughter stands in the middle of . . . hands dripping, face marked like a cannibal.” Parents in previous eras were spared these horrors, he explained, because “idiot” children were promptly “tossed down the well or thumped against the fence post.” For “educated” families in more recent times, he added, at least there was a way out—institutionalization. But now, desperate parents had to find their own ways out, as Bartolome had been forced to do with a handgun when he ran out of options. This was the harsh reality of raising a child with autism, according to Sea. (He neglected to mention that weeks before the shooting, Bartolome—described by his relatives as a loving and devoted father—had been laid off just before retirement, shunting him into a series of temporary jobs and putting his son’s future care at risk.) Shannon felt herself becoming physically ill while reading Sea’s article. Was this her family’s future? IV
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Steve Silberman (NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity)
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Tree House This jungle tree house build is both fun and rewarding, especially once you get finished in the evening and can watch the sun set from the patio of your new house suspended a hundred feet in the air. Here’s how to get started. Once you locate a jungle biome in your world, pick out a few tall trees that are close to each other: Start by building a platform around one of the trees and adding columns at the corners to support a half-roof: With the columns in place, begin adding on a roof, using stairs as the roof portions. Note that all of the wood I’m using for this build is jungle wood. Add fencing between the columns to keep people from falling out, leaving a space on one side for your patio. Create the patio using bottom stone slabs for a lower portion where a fountain/waterfall will go, then using top stone slabs for the eating area. Once the patio is completed, you can use pressure plates on top of fence posts for tables, stairs for chairs and then use a water bucket to create a nice flow of water through a hole in the patio. Fences around the perimeter keep people safe and a few torches keep things well-lit. Next, find a nearby tree and construct a second platform: Make sure the second platform is surrounded by fending as well, then connect both platforms with stairs and wood planks, adding in fencing on the sides for safety: This new platform will be the sleeping area, and three sets of beds arranged around the tree in the middle look cozy and inviting. Top this platform off with a few torches and you’re set! Adding some jungle leaves above the platform will protect sleepers below from getting wet when it rains, and will help keep things looking natural and open. Go back to the main platform and construct an additional, smaller platform above it: Cut a hole in both platforms and add a tall ladder going from the uppermost platform down to the ground, passing through the main platform on its way. At the bottom, add a landing with torches and stairs leading down to the beach: Clear the upper platform of leaves and then add on fencing for safety, torches for light and use a staircase and wooden slab to create long chairs that people can sit on to watch the sunsets. A pair of stairs on the sides of the upper platform add additional seating for more guests: Wow! This tree house looks amazing! You’ve got all of the basic set up, so now it’s up to you to take it to the next level! Add in more personal touches, expand the tree house with more connected platforms or build even higher into the jungle!
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Markus Bergensten (The Mining Construction Handbook: Your Complete Guide to Minecraft Construction)
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Step 12: Balcony Floor Now it’s time for the balcony and we’re going to build it on the front side. Start with oak wood and bring it out four blocks on either side and also do a row between them on the outside. Then fill in the area with oak wood planks. Step 13: Balcony Pillars Then build pillars reaching up to the front of the balcony, use fence posts for this.
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Johan Lööf (Minecraft House Ideas & Awesome Structures (Resource Lists, Step-By-Step Blueprints, Descriptions & Pictures))
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Cedar Capital Group Tokyo: Construction Site Health & Safety Review
Accidents on construction sites are becoming a much more regular occurrence around the globe and can have devastating affects on families, communities and regions. Just recently we witnessed the destruction and heartbreak caused when the crawler crane toppled over onto the Masjid al-Haram, the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia on 11 September 2015, which killed 118 people and injured a further 394.
The majority of accidents on construction sites can be avoided if health and safety requirements are followed. An experienced health & safety advisor can assist you in identifying loss control techniques which in turn minimizes the risk to members of the public, your property and your employees.
One of the most frequently occurring accidents construction sites is fire. Ignoring safety policies and procedures can have a disastrous effect and are a common cause of injury on a construction site. Fire extinguishers should be available and close by and you should appoint an employee to be on fire watch.
The weather can be a source of accidents on construction sites.
Sites become more susceptible as severe weather patterns continue to grow across the globe. In Asia, typhoons have become more frequent, we have seen buildings collapse during high category storms. These types of accidents can be avoided by appointing someone with the responsibility of monitoring the weather to make sure that the construction site is correctly braced before the typhoon arrives.
The lack of site is another key factor that causes accidents. Construction sites are like playgrounds for inquisitive children looking for something to do so it’s imperative that you have secured the site with adequate fencing.
Posting visible safety signs around the construction site in order to remind and protect the employees, visitors and members of the genera public. Always post safety signs at the entrance and ensure that all visitors wear the correct personal protective equipmentwhich includes a hard hat and safety boots.
Cedar Capital Group are a Singapore based, capital equipment, company that leases construction equipment throughout Asia with core markets in Seoul, South Korea and Tokyo, Japan.
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Alana Barnet
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You went about with your soul full of suspicion and hatred; you understood that you were environed by hostile powers that were trying to get your money, and who used all the virtues to bait their traps with. The storekeepers plastered up their windows with all sorts of lies to entice you; the very fences by the wayside, the lamp-posts and telegraph-poles, were pasted over with lies. The great corporation which employed you lied to you, and lied to the whole country—from top to bottom it was nothing but one gigantic lie.
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Anonymous
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Kahnawake
August 1704
Temperature 75 degrees
It was worth going into the water just to get away from Ruth’s nagging. Mercy waded in, appalled by how cold it was. Snow Walker towed her around for a minute and then let go. At first Mercy couldn’t take two strokes without having to stand up and reassure herself that there was a bottom, but soon she could swim ten, and then twenty, strokes. Joseph, who had been swimming with the boys, paddled over to admire her new skill.
Snow Walker coaxed them to put their heads under the water and swim like fish. Mercy loved it. Wiping river water from her eyes and laughing, she shouted, “Come on in, Joanna!” In front of Snow Walker, she spoke Mohawk. “It feels so cool and slippery inside the water.”
Joanna shook her head. “I can’t see where I’m going on land. I don’t want to be blind in water over my head.”
“Ruth!” yelled Joseph, in English so she’d answer. “Try it. I won’t pull you under by the toes. I promise.”
“Savages swim,” said Ruth. “English people walk or ride horses.”
By now, Mercy had flung her tunic onto the grass and was as bare as everybody else. When Ruth scolded, Mercy ducked under the water and stayed there until the yelling was over.
“Just wait till you get out, Mercy,” said Ruth. “The mosquitos are going to feast on your wet bare skin.”
Mercy translated for Snow Walker, who said, “No, no. We grease to keep the mosquitos away.”
Joseph, of course, had been greasing for weeks, but so far Mercy had not submitted. Ruth, unwilling to see Mercy slather bear fat over her nakedness, stalked away.
“Good,” said Snow Walker, giggling. “The fire is out. We are safe now.”
Mercy was startled. “I never heard you use her old name.”
“I don’t call her Let the Sky In,” explained Snow Walker. “She would let nothing in but storms.”
Snow Walker’s not such a fence post after all, thought Mercy. “Snow Walker, why have they given Ruth such a fine new name?”
“I don’t know. One day at a feast, the story will be told.”
“They’ll have to gag Ruth before they tell it,” said Joseph. “She hates her new name even more than she hated her old one.”
They got out of the water, racing in circles to dry off, and then Snow Walker rubbed bear grease all over Mercy.
“I can’t see you from here, Munnonock,” said Joanna, “but I can smell you.”
“Want some?” said Mercy, planning to attack with a scoop of bear grease, but Joanna left for the safety of the cornfields and her mother. Snow Walker went back in to join a water ball team.
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Caroline B. Cooney (The Ransom of Mercy Carter)
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The lush greenness of the pastures infused Shiloh. Overhead, she saw a red-tailed hawk flying in higher and higher circles in the sky. There were bluebirds everywhere, many of them sitting on fence posts. When they took off, that flash of brilliant blue always made her gasp with delight; it was almost an unearthly gorgeous color.
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Lindsay McKenna (Wind River Wrangler (Wind River Valley, #1))
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Kahnawake
April 20, 1704
Temperature 56 degrees
Mercy’s only hope for friendship was Nistenha’s cousin’s daughter, Snow Walker, who was a frequent visitor and pleasant enough. But Indians were less likely to talk for the sake of talk and Snow Walker hardly talked at all. Snow Walker for a friend would be like a fence post for a friend.
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Caroline B. Cooney (The Ransom of Mercy Carter)
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If you are too afraid to be loved, and to love- and if you want to build fences in the wilderness of my love to keep my intensity of expression at bay... Then I am not the one for you.
If you want me to be anyone but myself, then you need to read the warning sign posted on my spirit: keep out of my heart.
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Cheri Bauer
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...an unlikely group pieced together these past few weeks from parties and family references, friend-of-friend happenstance, and (in one case, just now being introduced) sheer, scarcely tolerable intrusiveness-five people who, in normal life back home, would have been satisfied never to have known one another.
Five young expatriates hunch around an undersized cafe table: a moment of total insignificance, and not without a powerful whiff of cliche.
Unless you were one of them. Then this meaningless, overdrawn moment may (then or later) seem to be somehow the summation of both an era and your own youth, your undeniably defining afternoon (though you can hardly say that aloud without making a joke of it). Somehow this one game of Sincerity becomes the distilled recollection of a much longer series of events. It persistantly rises to the surface of your memory-that afternoon when you fell in love with a person or a place or a mood, when you savored the power of fooling everyone, when you discovered some great truth about the world, when (like a baby duck glimpsing your quacking mother's waddling rear for the first time) an indelible brand was seared into your heart, which is, of course, a finate space with limited room for searing.
Despite its insignificance, there was this moment, this hour or two, this spring afternoon blurring into evening on a cafe patio in a Central European capital in the opening weeks of its post-Communist era. The glasses of liqueur. The diamond dapples of light between oval, leaf-shaped shadows, like optical illusions. The trellised curve of the cast-iron fence seperating the patio from its surrounding city square. The uncomfortable chair. Someday this too will represent someone's receding, cruelly unattainable golden age. (4-5)
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Arthur Phillips (Prague)
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Mlinzi mmoja wa ndani alishtuka aliposikia kishindo cha kitu kudondoka. Aligeuka upesiupesi lakini akaridhika alipokuta ni mwenzake ila akashindwa kuelewa kwa nini mwenzake huyo aanguke. Hata hivyo aliachana na Murphy na kuendelea na lindo lake huku akivuta msokoto mfupi wa bangi. Lakini, yule mlinzi hakutembea hatua nyingi kabla ya kusimama na kujiuliza maswali kichwani. Kwa nini mwenzake huyo atoke nje ambako ndiko alikuwa amepangiwa na ambako ndiko waliambiwa kuwe na ulinzi imara na ndiyo maana wakawekwa saba? Kwa nini aanguke ndani ya ua bila hata ya kumsemesha chochote? Kwa nini hakumpigia redio kwamba alikuwa akiingia ndani ili asiwe na wasiwasi? Alipowaza sana aliamua asiwe na pupa. Aliamua kumfuata mwenzake, aliyekuwa mbele yake, ili amwambie kitu na washirikiane.
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Enock Maregesi (Kolonia Santita)
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If a sentence were a picket fence, the serial commas would be posts at regular intervals.
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Anonymous
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Anya had never seen a house uglier house than Baba Yaga’s. It was made entirely of mouldy bones in the same interlocking design as a log cabin. A thorny garden grew as high as the fence and skulls, bleached white by the sun, capped each fence post. Two enormous scaly chicken legs came out on either side of the house. Anya snorted in amusement and disgust. Yvan, she noticed, had turned an interesting shade of grey.
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Amy Kuivalainen (Cry of the Firebird (The Firebird Fairytales, #1))
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This was obviously done with a blunt lance,” Volney said after examining a deeply dented breastplate. Morgan stopped writing for a moment. “Actually,” he corrected, “General Harband was thrown by his horse and he landed chest-first on a fence post.” “Old Hardman Harband?” Volney laughed. “Oh I wish I could have seen that.
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Brian Fuller (Duty (The Trysmoon Saga, #2))
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The man had the intelligence of the average fence post, the personality of a wounded warthog, and the stubbornness of a flea-bitten mule. Grace silently apologized to all the animals she’d just insulted.
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Mary Connealy (Calico Canyon (Lassoed in Texas, #2))
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Once his new study was furnished, he went down the hall and borrowed the roofer’s hammer and five nails. The Count had not wielded a hammer since he was a boy at Idlehour when he would help Tikhon, the old caretaker, repair the fencing in the first weeks of spring. What a fine feeling it had been to bring the hammer down squarely on the head of a nail, driving it through a plank into a fence post as the impact echoed in the morning air. But on the very first stroke of this hammer what the Count squarely hit was the back of his thumb. (Lest you have forgotten, it is quite excruciating to hammer the back of your thumb. It inevitably prompts a hopping up and down and the taking of the Lord’s name in vain.)
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Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
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In the postage-stamp yard, the border collie reverted to herding things—squirrels, snow motes, fence posts—anything to convince the humans that she was still worthy of love.
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Richard Powers (The Echo Maker)
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Norcroft Equestrian Developments Ltd have over forty years experience to the equine market and expertise in fencing the worlds leading Stud Farms and Training Centres, supplying Pressure Creosoted Post & Rail Fencing, Stud Entrance & Paddock Gates - Norcroft provide the complete service from concept to completion. Building on a reputation for quality and service we continue to pioneer new fencing systems and revolutionising fencing construction.
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Norcroft Equestrian Developments Ltd
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By obligation Pamela read me “The Posting,” a warning to would-be owners that pure Border collies are essentially smarter than your average local elected official and slippier than Cool Hand Luke. They can jump six-foot fences, dig under walls, open doors and gates and in an emergency, hot-wire any automobile manufactured before 1998.
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William J. Thomas (The Dog Rules: (Damn Near Everything))
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I know you love to read and detest the rain,” she continued, watching his hands with fascination. “I know you can make a discarded fence post into a work of art with nothing more than a sharp knife. I know you treat your men like family, and they speak of you like a god. I know you’d rather be surrounded by cows than people. I know your mood goes positively foul whenever you’ve had too little sleep or gone too long without eating.” She paused. Swallowed a sudden lump.
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Elisa Braden (The Temptation of a Highlander (Midnight in Scotland, #3))
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And he’ll do something utterly corny like write you love notes on Post-its and you’ll be a smitten kitten in your house with a picket fence and pet poodles.” “Say the words smitten kitten to me again and I’ll call the police.
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N.R. Walker (Bloom)
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And he’ll do something utterly corny like write you love notes on Post-its and you’ll be a smitten kitten in your house with a picket fence and pet poodles.” “Say the words smitten kitten to me again and I’ll call the police.” “I would, but they have handcuffs and I know you like that.
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N.R. Walker (Bloom)
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I let go of the fence post and hold my arms open wide, while crooking my fingers toward myself. “Come here.
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Elsie Silver (Flawless (Chestnut Springs, #1))