Do you know the rhyme?
“The shoe was lost because there was no nail.”
The horse was lost because it lacked a shoe.
The rider lost his way because he lacked a horse.
The message was lost because there was no rider.
The battle was lost because there was no message.
The kingdom was lost for lack of a fight.
“And all this for the lack of a horseshoe-nail.”
It’s a nursery song that may be connected to the Battle of Bosworth, in which Britain’s King Richard III died. I could relate to the events, albeit on a much smaller scale, when I began the difficult task of repairing the back gate of our Etseri Village property, near the Barn.
This gate had survived a few winters but the recent arrivals and departures of heavy machinery (in this instance, trucks and diggers) had taken their toll. The gate was left open by the departing workers, or, more accurately, it fell over. Cows then began to wander in and sample our backyard’s beautiful foliage without making a noise. I was in my bedroom with the window wide open at the time and heard no sound. They didn’t even moo once to let themselves be known, those sneaky creatures. Guilty conscience? When my wife saw them, I immediately booted up, took off on the spot, with a stick in hand. I had already made sure that there was a way out for them all. Yes, I charged at them with fury. I only got a few whacks in before they fled. Consider how to repair the gate and prop it up.
The two oak posts, with sharpened ends, would be needed to be buried in the ground. One would be used to hinge the long gate, and the other would be used to fix the other end of the gate, as well as the meeting end, with wire loops, when not in use.
This is a particularly rocky area and there are some large specimens that I can’t lift. I want to dig out one in particular because it sticks out, and scares truck and car drivers when they try to enter this way. I started digging around it using a straight bar in order to gauge its size and the depth of the ground.
It turned out that there were at least 10 other rocks holding the prize in place. The rock was also quite deep. It had to go so I rolled my sleeves up and continued digging. Around it, rock after rock emerged. It would move an inch or two with my weight on the bar. (I remembered the lever as one of the ancient, classical Basic Machines from school). I dug up all the earth around it, to help it move into daylight. But it was still fighting.
I then poured water all around the area to soften and lubricate it, realizing that both friction and the monster’s weight were holding it down. I finally borrowed a neighbor’s second bar and then the neighbor himself as leverage. Only this way were we able to free it from its home for decades or centuries. It was then a simple matter of rolling the heavy object down the slight slope that the outside road offered. I couldn’t lift it.
I had to fight the same battles when digging the hole for the oak post. I could have reached the core of the earth if I continued. The hole was finally deep enough for me to sink the pointed end into the hole, then I had to shovel the soil around the post, wet it a little, and then stamp it all down as hard as possible. This soil will hold the post in place when it is dry. Whew!
My arms and hands have seized up, so I will continue tomorrow with the second post and then wire-hinge a long gate to it. Then we’ll be able to see the results. It’s good for now, but we’ll need to cement steel posts into the ground in the future. For now, the fence will keep cows out. That’s enough. These rocks almost broke me.
BLOG by Tony Hanmer
Tony Hanmer is a writer and photographer who has been working for GT since 2011. He has lived in Georgia and Svaneti, respectively, since 1999. 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
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