Between Our Steps: Fence Rows

Burying fence rows clears land for larger equipment — but the stone returns with each freeze and thaw. Cathy Hird weighs the tradeoff between acreage and ecosystem.

Photo by Carl Tronders on Unsplash

COMMUNITY CONTRIBUTION

In the early seventies, my husband bought our farm from the youngest son of the people who settled the land. Given that the owners were in their nineties, they didn’t clean the place out. So there were preserves in the basement, and rotting leather horse harnesses under the buckets of bolts my husb…