When I pounded the T-Posts on Saturday I checked the fence anchors we built a few weeks ago. All of the twitch wires had come a little loose. This was not surprising, the anchors always settle after a few weeks in the ground, especially with the rain we have had. The wire stretches and slips around the post so that the tension becomes more evenly distributed, and slack that was present in one of the wraps gets spread through all of the wraps.
So on Monday, Winnie and Daddy went out to tighten them up before we stretch fence (hopefully) on Thursday. This went well enough on the first two anchors. For these I had used heavy duty 12 gauge wire, but I ran out after the first two anchors. It is quite expensive so I decided to substitute a triple wrap of regular 16 ga fencing wire.
As soon as we started tightening these, they snapped. I was forced to cobble them back together with some ugly splices.
So we went and bought 12ga wire on our way home from violin, and on Tuesday we re-did the twitch wires.
Double wrap for strength.
I considered using cable but it was an extra almost a dollar per foot and then I would have had to buy cable clamps as well, two per anchor. The 12 ga wire will do.
Little Farm in the Big City 