Corral fence rebuild

It is nice to accomplish something physical. Working with a hammer, nails and wood took me back to my days as a little boy when I would built "forts" on the ground and tree-forts in the shelter belt trees large enough to hold such a structure (some tree-forts were merely a few boards to sit on; others had walls and a roof).

I rebuilt part of my east side corral fence. This has been on my "to-do" list ever since dad passed away and I looked around at what needed to be fixed. While this section of the corral fence was old, old, old, and parts of it had rotted, it still was good enough to work as a fence to keep the livestock in the corral. Other items forced their way to the top of my "to-do now!" list the past few years.

Last fall Dan kept in my corral some of his calves that were being weaned from their mothers. The first night the cattle broke out of the corral (at another section of the fence) and went looking for their mothers. After we rounded the cattle back into the corral Dan brought over a few of his portable corral panels to use as extra insurance.

Later one heifer got her head stuck in one of Dan's corral panels and drug this and other corral panels over to, and into, my wood corral fence and wrecked it. My fence now wouldn't hold any livestock who felt the grass was greener on the other side.

Btw - Dan got the heifer's head out of the panel by tucking her ears back and getting her to tilt her head. She was ok - just took her a while before she would put her head near the panels again. How she got into that predictament... who knows?!

Here is another photo showing another part of the corral fence from last summer. Needs paint, eh?! Anyone interested in coming out to paint with me this summer?

In the background is the loafing shed. On the right is the section of corral fence that I repaired. Actually you can't see this section as it is just beyond the section of boards you can see stretching towards - but not to - the loafing shed.

In this photo the section I repaired between the loafing shed and the board fence doesn't look like it would be long, but it was 32 ft.

Oh yeah, the photo is of "Chewbacca", so named because he liked to chew on the fence. (If you can't break through the fence... chew your way out!)

"Green" is the word. We are in a weather cycle where it rains every other day, or every couple days. Low pressure after Low pressure is forming in the Pacific Ocean and sending rain our way. It almost makes me nostalgic for the past few years when we were in a drought.

In between rain days I worked on the corral fence. Early last week I took it all apart. This section of the fence may be the last of the original fence as the rest of the fence is made up of boards or barb wire. I don't know how old the fence is but I would not be surprised if it was built back when the ranch was created in the early 1940s. The fence must have been built before the loafing shed as the fence pointlessly ran along the side of the loafing shed instead of merely to it.

Many of the fence poles were very long "poles"; some must have been from very tall thin trees, others might have been from long, big branches. The good ones I set aside to use elsewhere; the bad ones will go as firewood.

In my rebuild I started from the end of the loafing shed as there is no sense in fencing along its side. Subtracting 10 feet for the width of the pole shed I was left with 32 ft. That's what happens when the original fence is made from hand cut pole/branch lengths - an odd length. For the new fence I have a number of 9 ½ ft long poles. I used three lengths of poles for 28 ½ ft total. With a ½ foot tied into the pole shed wall I had 4 feet left.

What to do about the 4 feet? I didn't want to cut any long poles in half. While I have a large drive-through gate nearby I decided to make this section another gate - one for walking through. From my "gleaning" I had enough odds & ends of wood to build a gate.

As I have enough wooden posts I dedicated a post for each end of the pole rather than having one post share the ends of two poles. I cut each end of the pole to be flat; partly to sit snug against the post and partly so the pole is thinner enabling more of the nail to go into the posts for more support. This all will make for a sturdy fence.

I put four poles on each section. This way the corral fence will be high enough no calf will jump it looking for its mama during weaning, and strong enough it won't break through the fence.

Even without cattle, it discombobulated me to see an open area in my fence. Any day without rain last week I was out working on my fence to narrow that open area. Finally over the weekend all I had left was to make my gate.

Somewhere along the line from my auction sales I got a pail of parts for chain link fences and gates. I was able to find pieces for hinges. I didn't have a metal pole used with chain link fences so I found a metal pipe to fasten one side of the hinges. The other side was fastened to my newly built wood gate.

It works. I put the gate at the end where the pole fence comes to the board fence. This was so it doesn't seem all that out of place. Being wood it does flow together even going from round poles to flat boards.

I bought a cane bolt to use as the locking mechanism for my gate. Now to get time to install it and I'll be done. ...once I finish a few other projects "distracting" me now, which I'll write about later.