Mending Fences

“’Wawona Meadows themselves might be called the Sleepy Hollow of the West,” claimed author J. Smeaton Chase in his 1911 book, “Yosemite Trails”. ‘It is the most peaceful spot that I know of in America … Here is an unbroken meadow, green as heaven, a mile-long, waving knee-high with all delicious grasses and threaded with brooklets of crystal water. It is surrounded with a rail fence that rambles in and out and round about and hither and thither in that sauntering way that makes a rail-fence such a companionable thing.”

(Excerpted from “Yosemite’s Historic Wawona” by Shirley Sargent)

A good portion of the meadow remains much as it was described nearly one hundred years ago. (Okay, the golf course was added a few years after “Yosemite Trails” was written.) One of the things that makes this meadow memorable is the split railing fence that still stands today. Well, sort of. Over the years parts of it have succumbed to nature’s encroachment. Rising vines and falling branches have obscured it in places and destroyed it in others.

This summer there are some changes to the fencing. Parts of it are being restored and parts of it are being removed. The wooden railings from the meadow’s backside are being salvaged and used in restoring the fence closest to the road. It seems sensible but I have mixed feelings about the change. I’ll miss the fence on the backside but it will be nice to see a more natural transition from mountainside to meadow.