Building fence

Gotta run down to moms and put in about 100' of fence tomorrow. Got things loaded up. I know it ain't much, gotta set 3 posts, build a wire gate. Dog gone I forgot to put in stick for the gate. Guess Grandson is going with meup.Will be easy cat work is done.

Got a 40 for ya, and the bugs are gone now.

Ahh....building fence.......Sweltering heat and humidity, down in the lows behind the woods with no breeze, deer flies doing the Godly duty of being the most absolutely annoying thing ever created in the universe, the hours rolling by with what sometimes looks like nothing to show for it, .....yeah, it's great!

I mean, I'd rather build/ fix fence than a few other things, like anesthesia free root canals, but....enjoy?  That's a tough one.  Yes, I would rather build new than fix old, but come on guys!

Hope they're in good and solid and all overgrown with brush and dare I say poison ivy.

Don't remember so much the new fence building but do remember the fixing of old and rusty barbed wire fences... dad would try and splice even the stuff that would break when you bent it. But, have to admit, sometimes he would give in and get some "less rusty" wire to splice in where there was too much rust. I look back fondly on working with dad but not the rusty wire.

I do most of the fencing at the farm. I don't enjoy barb wire but fix it when it's broke. Most of the permanent barbed wire is pretty old but we done have many trees to worry about the swamp parts are the worst. Most of the fence here is electric I move the fences fairly regularly. I set the corner posts run 1 strand with the Polaris put in step in posts made of 1/2" rebar run a second strand on the way back. Me and a helper can put up 1/2 mile in a couple hours. Un fortunately we change fence crop locations twice a year. Good part is were on flat clear land when we do it. I run all the fence weekly and check it with a Polaris usually takes half a day if only minor repairs. We have six differant pastures with 20 miles between the farthest. Very soon the cattle will be brought back to winter pasture. It's mostly freestanding panels and percent fence with a temp hot wire going out in the field nearby. We put the hay feeders out in the field and move them around in spring we just harro the manure and leftover fodder into the field.

     Years ago I bought a farm that someone previously had half-___ built about a mile or so of barbed wire fence on. Never stretched it tight. The wire had a tag on it that it was made in Brazil. Really stiff wire that wanted to spring back into a coil as you got it loose. Nasty to work with and lots of scratches. It had good galvanizing on it. There is a small coil of it on a post that I left when I tore the fence out over 45 years ago and it has very little rust on it even now. Used some if it over and wasn't so bad to work with after you got it stretched. Never have seen any like it any where else since.

Not to go off topic in the least, but fences (and long trellis systems for my wine grapes) got a lot simpler (NEVER "EASY" lol!) when I learned to use "dynamic floating braces." At first I was skeptical, maybe even cynical which is probably why I made one in the first place, to disprove it to myself. Now I won't use anything else, and my corners always stay put better than with any other corner-post systems I've built over the past nevermind how many decades lol!

festus51 wrote: If possible I would like to see  "dynamic floating braces"   never heard of that before

Yea,,me too

Here's some of mine
[IMG]uploads/598/20

IIRC this was 5 steel, 1 wood, a lot do 4 steel/1 wood, 14 ft space on posts...

Folks,

We use osage orange (hedge) around here.

This discussion got me to thinking about the old saying "Good fences make good neighbors".  A friend of mine got tired of all the problems we have farming in "the city" and bought a place up in western Nebraska.  The place was a real eyesore and being between I80 on one side and a state highway on the other, stood out. The first year there, they spent most of their time cleaning it up and trying to get hay established for their cattle herd still here in CO.   The fence along the state highway was in bad shape and he finally gave up on trying to repair it and pulled it out.  He went to the local farm store and bought new posts and wire and they spent several days building the new fence.  He said he was amazed at how many people stopped to thank him for taking better care of the place, some even helped for a while.  His wife is now doing some remodeling on the house and almost always buys supplies at the local store, even though she could get them cheaper at Lowes or H D when she is down here.  They know her on a first name basis and might actually give her a bit of a better deal as she is in there often.  They figure the extra money they spend locally is well worth it in helping to become part of the community.

I remember helping Dad "repairing" a lot of fence the day after I shot the bulls gonads with a BB gun!

SPAM...