As I rode further into the West, a sight that now regularly filled me with apprehension was a cattle grid with a wire gate for livestock at the side......
A wire gate is essentially formed by the end of a fence line. It is strained shut by two loops of wire, often barbed, attached to the top and bottom of a fixed post and then looped over either end of a loose post at the opening end of the wire gate...
To open and shut the gate, the two posts must be pulled together so the top loop can be lifted off or lowered onto the post on the wire gate. This is a doddle for the hunky cowboys who undoubtedly designed the gates, but the fence is usually stretched so tight that this feat can be almost impossible for doddery old women such as myself. More often than not it was a gargantuan struggle for me to negotiate these gates unless I actually had a hunky cowboy at my disposal. No problem here as Donny opens a wire gate for us on Tank Farm road..
...notice all the tumbleweed piled up on one side. Or here, as Les does the honours a little further down the road ...
Unfortunately these handy gate openers were not always available and my feeble attempts to tackle the gates generally resulted in scratched hands accompanied by a lot of unorthodox language. The initial answer to the problem was presented by Todd Faessler near Bridgeport, when he generously presented me with this rather fearsome instrument...
...the fence strainer certainly did a marvellous job of pinching the two posts together, but was somewhat heavy and awkward to carry by packhorse. Various people suggested simpler methods, one of which I adapted for everyday use by using one of my lead ropes to squeeze the posts together by looping the rope round the posts and through the hook and pulling on the loose end ....
When that failed, I brought out the trusty car luggage ratchet I had acquired...
...this was compact and lightweight, though mine had a frustrating tendency to jam.
However I felt a huge sense of relief whenever I saw one of these...
... a lever gate latch which makes the whole thing effortless. You just flip the broad lever at the top over to release the latch. Why don't more ranchers use them? I suppose the answer is they are so macho they don't need to.
You can see how tight the fence is strained here by the fact that the wire gate post is lifted off the ground. This gate doesn't even bother with a wire loop at the top.
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