THE WAILING WALL

With the goats happy and contained despite foraging for food in addition to their regular grain, their ravenous appetite made it necessary to move them to another pasture. Lacking a pond the task of filling up buckets and buckets of water and transporting it to the new pasture became a laborious task. But like the children of Israel in the wilderness who needed water, we also were supplied with a rock which gushed forth water. This phenomenon happens after a rain and the water usually flows for us to two weeks and makes it way down to the creek back. This water is cool, clean and pure.

As we stood in awe and wonder at this site I noticed the intense look on Bruce’s face as the gears in his head was churning out an idea. I did not disturb him but gave him time to fully formulate this idea. Having viewed such a magnificent sight I was sure the idea must be a good one.

“Let’s build a retaining wall right here where this water flows into the creek bank. It doesn’t need to be very tall just maybe two feet. We could harness the water and it would be great for the goats. Sure would ease my workload,” Bruce stated as the idea spilled out of his head.

If Bruce thought that the two-foot wall was good, then the boss thought that surely a four-foot retaining wall would be even better. He wasted no time in running with the idea. Trenches were dug and the frames for the cement were put into place. A quick call to the cement dealer suggested that there was an immediate opening for delivery and did they want to take it. The boss said sure. It has been my experience that when you get into a hurry over something and have to have it right now, or yesterday was even better then you run the risk of forgetting something important. Such was the case on this project. Bruce barely had time to get some of the last braces of the framework in place when the cement truck showed up.

The mix that had been delivered was a dry mix which although it made the wall stronger it is more difficult to work with. That necessitated that they work at a fever pitch shoveling and pushing around the cement into the forms while the sweltering heat zapped their strength and intensified the work before them. They had taken no water to the project sight thinking that they had time to do so before the cement truck arrived. Their calculation was off and this is a job where you cannot take a break in the process. If you disobey this rule than you run the risk of the cement hardening before you get it into the proper place.

They wailed and bemoaned the fact that the project was rushed and it had to be completed before their thirst could be quenched. Coupled with the fact that the boss wore the wrong kind of gloves and some of the cement seeped through the gloves onto his hand and irritated his hands so much it would be another week until his hands recovered. It had been for these reasons that the wall had become affectionately known as the wailing wall.

Just when they thought that the project was done, Bruce decided that fence posts should be put into the wet cement to provide for future fencing. Looking back Bruce had wondered if that had been necessary since goats do not like to swim. The addition of the fencing proved to be a costly mistake.

It would be several weeks before the first rain came to test the strength of the wailing wall. It had been a gentle rain and the wall held and the water that flowed up against it stood. It was not until a week or so after that that the deluged of rain descended from the sky in a torrent and dropped ten inches of rain in a twenty-four hour period. Creek banks and riverbanks all over the county were covered with water. Worst flooding in forty years, the old timers would tell us. Bruce knew that he would have to access what damage, if any were done to the wailing wall. Our wailing wall was six feet high, the increase of height was due to the debris that was carried downstream and pushed into the fence which was now acting as a barrier. The pressure that the debris placed upon wailing wall made it decidedly lean. It was now in danger of falling down. The wailing wall definitely had some issues but they could not be addressed until the rain stopped.

The rain continued for a week and the constant pressure made the wall collapse. It had broken in two places. The short end of the wall stood straight up as a pillar stretching heavenward. The longer portion of the wall lay out in the creek bank just one inch above the ground. With swiftness Bruce rushed in and repaired the wire fence so the goats would still remain contained and not venture off. That was all that could be done until a dry season; the repair of the wall would have to wait until the water subsided. While they waited Bruce and his boss bantered back and forth about the merits of going ahead and completely destroying the wall and rebuilding it from scratch or merely raising the wall back up. In the end the best solution was to raise the wall again.

The first step was to clean out all the debris that hindered the raising of the wall. It would take three men to actually raise the wall so Bruce enlisted the help of Larry (the guy who found eight of our renegade goats on his land). Armed with a chain hoist, two twenty-ton jacks, one five ton jack and our tractor they were ready to start. The fifty-foot chain hoist was secured around a giant oak tree and attached to some rebar in the wall. The jacks and the hoist were inched upward a quarter of an inch at a time and blocks were put in place so that the progress made would not be lost. As they slowly inched their way upward they could hear the concrete snap and pop under the strain. They were always careful to quickly move back from the wall after each upward motion just in case the wall succumbed under the strain. As the wall was approaching its original height, then they brought in the tractor and began to shove the pillar portion of the wall downward. To everyone’s amazement this pushing of the pillar actually helped to pull the whole wall almost exactly into its original place.

There was much hoopla going around with high fives and maybe a victory dance or two. You would have thought they just made a fifty-yard touchdown at the super bowl. But the work on the wailing wall still was not finished. They had to go back and add in a kneeling supports on both the front and back side of the wall. Pour more concrete to cement it into place and repair the cracks and ten and only then would the wailing wall work to its full potential.

Our wall was put in danger in the first place because of all the debris had come in when the flood waters overwhelmed the barriers what we had made. Originally we did not have the knelling supports in place that should have been there to support the wall against the water on the other side from tipping the wall over. The kneeling supports are much like the Holy Spirit who comes in when the enemy attacks and supports us against the pressures from the outside.

Until Next Time, Gracie

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