Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

I missed the photo opportunity of Dag and neighbor cow nose-to-nose, but this image reminded me of a poem I studied decades ago:  Mending Wall.

We haven't been homeschooling long, but this picture also reminds me of the stacks of 4th Grade untouched curriculum books in our schoolroom.  We love being outside, going down rabbit holes, exploring, and learning on the go.

I read Mending Wall to Ella, which led to some pretty darn good analysis on her part.  Many interpretations exist, but Ella seems to think its a reflection of the inner struggle between Robert Frost (the Narrator) and his father.  

While looking up the history of Robert Frost, she discovered his father, William, "was a rough-around-the-edges journalist who was a hard drinker, always carried a pistol, and kept a glass jar of pickled bull testicles on his desk at work."  

We read a few reviews with themes of family traditions, man and the natural world, etc, but I think she might be on to something:  his father's attributes would certainly encourage me to build an internal wall.

Even today...some like walls, some don't.  Here in the country, we don't need fences--except, "where there are cows", [llamas, goats, bullies:].