Pruning the fence posts

A while back, the banana field next to the horses' pasture was fenced in so that the horses could eat in there. We were told that as a part of our daily tasks, we were to check the fence every day to make sure that nothing grew on it or was otherwise hindering the electricity flow. So we started doing that. After a couple of days, we saw that the fence posts had started sprouting little green leaves. The logical thing to us was to remove them.

But apparently that wasn't the right thing to do. Stina explained that we had to leave at least some of the leaves to grow, or else the post would die. And then it would rot and fall down. It was also very important that the posts were put in the ground the right way up, or else they would not sprout. As I have said before: everything grows here. You can cut down a tree, cut it into 20 pieces, and lay the pieces on the ground, and after a week or two they would start sprouting, and you would have the beginnings of 20 clones of the chopped-down tree.

I have actually seen this happen (although not of that magnitude). The other day I passed the chunks still left from cutting up a big tree in front of the academy, and a couple of them were sprouting new tiny leaves. Big chunks of tree-trunk, sprouting just because they could! Wow. I love how the plant life here is always multiplying and so very alive. At home, in Norway, if a tree was cut down and left lying on the ground, I would be pretty surprised if it started sprouting leaves and making new roots for itself.

So instead of cutting off all the green sprouts on the fence posts, we now just prune them so that they don't interfere with the fence wire. So now, the fence posts look like small trees. Eventually, they might end up like the huge trees I saw once when I went to New Zealand. Really tall (and thick) poplar trees that are over 100 year old, which grew from fence posts in the Buried Village in the Rotorua area. Let's hope they don't, at least not in the foreseeable future. The more likely thing to happen, though, is that the fence posts will grow and bring the fence higher up. Then there would be a constant need to adjust the height of the fence.

I am once again in awe of nature. How marvellous! It's almost like magic: just break a part of the plant off and stick it in the ground the right way up, and you have a new plant! Just like that! If only it was that simple in every climate. But then, fast-growing things make for more things to keep cutting back from taking over. Good things never come without at least one disadvantage. But even so, nature is amazing and really awesome!

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