Saturday was one of the biggest days of work of the year. Thanks to an old friend coming to help, we finally stretched the center fence to divide the south pasture in half.
It started about 5 in the morning, actually. All the fence anchors we have built on the farm, this is the very last one, and I finally figured out a way to run the twitch wire quickly and easily with only one set of hands.
Simple set a deck screw in the post to hold the top end of the wire. That’s it. It’s that simple. Then simply go around the posts twice and put in the staples.
Took long enough to figure that out.
Then came the tricky part.
Rolling out the 200 foot role and doing the math to see if that would be sufficient along with the scrap segments from the north pasture. Turned out it would not be, so I had to make a trip to the farm store for another 100 foot roll. This will save the nice black fencing segments to finish the garden fence.
A quick break for breakfast and then we were back at it.
“Uncle” Cole has helped us out a number of times on the farm. He is a great worker and a good friend.
First step was setting out the posts, and pounding them.
Evie is too short to reach but that didn’t stop her trying.
We had the step stool out there for the 10 foot posts. Every 4th post is an extra tall post. This is because we want to run the electricity down the center of the field, but Kathleen likes to go out and lean on the center fence to watch the cows and sheep and to give them snacks. This is hard to do when there is a hot wire running along the top of the fence. So this time we are going to run the hot wire 6 1/2 feet off the ground. This will be low enough to clip the electric netting into, even for Kathleen (we verified she can reach 6 1/2 feet) but high enough that most of our friends will be in no danger of running their foreheads into it by mistake.
Running two straight lines is a good technique. It saves time in setting the T-posts because you don’t have to plumb each one. Simply set the bottom against the bottom line, and the top against the top line and it’s set. Just take care that it doesn’t get caught in the plate as you pound it. That will bury the line and it will need to be cut and re-tied.
Anchoring the first segment.
We stretched the fence with the truck and anchored it.
We left it without the T-post brackets for now so we could get on with the second section.
This one took a good deal longer because we didn’t have a single section of fence that was long enough, and the two long sections were too short by four feet, so we had to splice in a section from one of the plant protectors we took out.
This took a considerable amount of time.
Cole is also really good at working with wire.
Comes of being a professional electrician.
Finally finished the double splice.
Now time to anchor it and pound another line of T-posts.
Then Ellie got a hold of the camera and started taking pictures.
Here are some highlights.
Evie’s eye.
Majestic!
Goofball!
Winnie wants to help too.
Ellie is still not big enough to pound pickets.
We ready to stretch it?
You bet!
The patch is holding up nicely. We left it under tension for an hour or so while we ate lunch. Kathleen made us some pizzas and brought them out to the field for us. They were absolutely amazing. Cole thought the apple, salami, hazelnut pizza was one of the best pizzas he had ever had in his life.
Then the last bit for the day, finishing stapling the fence to the anchor.
And fixing the T-post brackets. We didn’t have time for all of them, we’ll get to that this week.
Ellie watching Uncle Cole and Evie fastening the T-post brackets.
Then it was time to be done for the day.
Good Job, Well Done.
Next week: hanging gates, finishing the T-post brackets, and running the hot wire.
Little Farm in the Big City 