It’s been over two years since we moved here to 3rd Street in Penrose. At that time, there were seven fence posts wearing boots, all in a line, marching up the hill after 3rd Street turns to County Road 123 heading west toward Canon City. As a city girl, I hadn’t ever seen fence posts wearing boots and was quite entertained by it. Every run into town for groceries or soccer practice or basketball games, I glance left to gander at the newcomers.
The first of the new additions was a pair of white sneakers, slung over the top of the post to hang by the conjoined shoelaces. A thoughtfully descriptive sign was tacked just below and hand written in black sharpie on computer paper. The creative donor even had the forethought to place the caption in a waterproof ziploc bag so it’s message would survive the elements proclaiming, “I can’t help it, I’m from Wisconsin.” I got a chuckle out of that one, either the donor was a city guy from Wisconsin and didn’t own any boots, or he was here on vacation and left his boots at home.
Shortly thereafter, an inverted laceless hiking boot with the tongue pulled way down and adorned with a black marker face showed up on the scene. It was wearing sunglasses just where the eyes would be. (If it were an upside down hiking boot with a real face.) That one was creative too.
Wrong.
Then, over the past year, it all went to pot. The quaint line of cowboy boots, Wisconsonian white sneakers and incognito hiking boot now extends westward for at least 20 more posts with each wearing something that the Goodwill shoe department threw up. There’s a flip flop, a 1970’s strappy white high heel, two adjacent posts wearing ski boots, wannabe Birkenstocks and a leopard print slipper.
Yikes.
I’ve got to be honest here. I don’t like the new additions. Not one bit. Especially not the slipper. It’s beginning to look more like trash than a cute statement that you’re on a back country road. When I first wrote about this, I was enlightened by a country reader that people adorn their wooden fence posts with items that will protect their tops of from rotting. Although I’m not a fan of the looks of tires or feed bags atop the posts, I now understand their functionality. Metal T-Posts, however, do not rot. The slipper is hanging on a T-Post. The 70’s heels are dangling from the side of a wooden post, post top fully exposed to the rotting rain and snow. If we were in snowy mountain country, I might be more open to the ski boots, but really, they’re out of place here in the high desert.
The proper footwear for an old cedar fence post.
In my two years driving past the shoe department, I’ve had time to develop my opinion on the situation, and here it is: In the country, if fence posts are going to wear footwear at all, they should be wearing cowboy boots.
Thanks for listening,
The Goat Cheese Lady
Great post Lindsey.
Another purpose (although I think it’s not the case here) for covering the tops of T-posts is to prevent injury to livestock. As horrible as it sounds, animals have been known to come down on top of a T-post and be impaled. You’ve probably seen the white, rounded caps on T-posts. One function of those is to hold an electric wire but they also serve the purpose of covering the potentially dangerous top of the post.