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Fencing on the Medano

By Anja Šaponja

Photos by Zachary Ginsberg

March 8, 2024

Fencing on the Medano, the pendulum swings. Most days, the rhythm of fencing makes for peaceful days of fixing and moving on. Other days, mainly in the spring, the winds blow so hard that the landscape changes, new hills are created, some are gone – those weeks are spent digging miles of fence line out from beneath the sand and raising it.

Sand moves and shifts on the Medano and you learn to adjust with it. When it’s been a windy night, I know the fresh sand calls for a dirtbike-only day. Those windy weeks mean digging weeks in the future.

Even though it may make work harder in many ways, it also makes work better in some – by giving me a soft place to land if I make a mistake on the bike, or by being able to pound a eight foot post into the ground in a few seconds, or dig a hole with little to no push back. Sometimes I curse the sand and sometimes I thank it. I think I'll always have a bit of sand still in my ear, and if you don’t, you probably never fenced on the Medano.

Fencing on the Medano has taught me a lot. It taught me to not chase flowers on the bike in the spring time or you will end up stuck in a marsh, that a back up plan is needed because main roads home may have a new lake on them one day, and that ants in the pants is no joke.

It taught me to be patient – to solve a problem one step at a time… and if I can't, call Max. Most importantly, it taught me that working with good people, and constantly learning is, at the end of the day, all I want.

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