The final corner of the field is the southeast fence. OUr friend Nicholas came over yesterday and helped stretch this, and thanks to his help we were able to make some great progress. Unfortunately, we had some setbacks and some upset tummies, so we didn’t get it quite finished.
As always, the first step was rolling out the wire. Here our two smallest farm hands did all the work themselves, while the grownups merely hovered over to make sure no little fingers were pinched.
We anchored the far corner without wire ties, just wrapping the fence fully around the post and stapling it down. Then, when it is stretched the friction of the wire tightening around and biting into the wood secures the fence.
the fence was just a touch too short to wrap around the anchor on the northern end, so we had to add thirteen wire ties to extend out the longitudtinal wires. Once that was complete we clamped half of them and set up our anchor and come-along. Ellie loves the come-along so we let her crank it as tight as she could before stepping in to get it snugged the rest of the way.
After stretching, we wrapped the un-clamped wires to secure the fence, then removed the clamp and wrapped and tied the remaining wires.
Nicholas stapled the south end again to lock in the tightened wrap and then came back to the north end to pound in the staples on the near anchor. Unfortunately, here we ran into a snag.
The staples made a split right up the center of the post from top to bottom. And yes, it propagates to the opposite side of the post.
So that is going to have to be wire tied. Not tonight.
Little Farm in the Big City 