My guess is that they needed to access the land on the other side of the fence without cutting it so they lifted and tacked it up there but never lowered it back down. Same as when I am working in one of my sugarbushes. I will prop up a sap line with a cut off sapling so I can get around with my equipment.
First introduced to making maple syrup in 1969
Making syrup every year since 1979
3 x 10 oil fired
Revolution syrup and max flue pan
Almost 1300 taps total with 900 on high vacuum
Bought first Marcland drawoff in 1997, still going strong.