Corral fence - south side teardown

Maybe I was too over-confident after rebuilding part of the east side of my corral fence. Maybe I didn't realize how bad the south corral fence was. I have my work cut out for me. If I get cattle this Thursday - I really have my work cut out for me!

I found the fence had only worked because of the sum total of all the parts added over the years. Without the total, there is no fence. There is the original fence: wood posts and three strands of barb wire. Later dad added a snow fence to prevent calves that were being weaned from going through the fence to rejoin their mamas on the other side. As the original wood fence posts got old dad added here-and-there steel fence posts to support the fence. Also along the top he added what I call 'extras'. This being long good-sized pine tree branches or small odd logs. This way the cattle wouldn't jump the fence.

I started the "teardown" of the south corral fence over the weekend between rain showers. I removed the 'extras'. Now the 'extras', like much of the fence, were old. The bark was barely on the tree branches and some branches came apart when I removed them.

Today, after a late start to the day , I had much of the day to work on the fence. I thought I would only have to remove the snow fence attached to the barb wire fence. Then I would add the sections of chain link fencing I had accumulated at various auction sales the past year. Wrong!

Removing the snow fence attached to the fence was the whole purpose of my fence rebuild. The snow fence was old. The past few years when I burned the grass along this fence line parts of the snow fence easily caught fire. Last year the cattle would break various snow fence boards in their effort to get their head through the fence and get at the tall grass growing on the other side in the hayfield.

I found the snow fence was all that held up parts of the fence. After I removed the snow fence the fence leaned wildly this-way-and-that-way only held off the ground by a few good wood posts, the steel posts, and the strands of barb wire. I decided to remove all of the fence and start from scratch. Whenever I would remove the barb wire strands from a good fence post a half dozen broken fence posts would then fall over.

With everything gone I had an open area where a fence once stood. If the 32 ft gap in my east fence rebuild had bothered me, the total removal of the south side was so overwhelming I couldn't fathom it. The fence just wasn't there.

In the Creston auction aftermath I had found in the discard pile a measuring tool: a wheel attached to a handle. Why no one bought or took the wheel prior to me finding it is a mystery. One revolution of the wheel measures five feet, with each spoke measuring one foot. Easy! I measured the south fence line to be 146 feet. What's with these odd measurements? What was the original fence builder thinking when he build a fence to that measurement? I can't divide 146 into equal sections for fence posts.

I now regret not buying some of the wood fence posts at the Bigfork auction last year. I have enough posts for this job, but now more would be better. While I am not going to use the long poles as I did on my east corral rebuild I decided to put the new wood posts in the ground spaced to the length of the poles: 9 ft. I can use a pole as a quick measuring device. Still, nine feet is a large enough distance between poles that I can imagine a big steer falling against the chain link fence and taking the fence down. Not likely, but I would feel better if my fence was very sturdy. I saw how the cattle would use their weight to push against things to get what they wanted.

I plan on putting something in between the fence posts - either the steel fence posts or odds & end of my scrap lumber. It all depends on what I have to run along the top of the chain link fence to hold it upright. Tonight I found a number of long metal poles that came with the chain link fence. But as I bought sections of chain link fencing at various auctions I have no idea if I have enough poles. Looking at the rolls of fencing I found 6 ft tall rolls, 5 ft tall rolls, and mostly 4 ft tall rolls. Oh, the joys of piecing together stuff. This is a corral: it is not how it looks, but how it works.

The ground is soft over much of the ranch: sandy loam soil. This being spring even more soft. All I had to do is use a post hole digger to dig through the thick mass of grass roots then use a slegehammer to pound the posts deeper into the ground. I put in over half the posts before I realized I wanted a gate in the fence. The old fence had no gate to the hayfield and that was annoying at times.

Now where should I put a gate? I have a chain link fence gate and it is not 9 ft wide. So deciding where the gate goes is important before placing all the fence posts in the ground. I brought the rolls of chain link fence from the hayshed either by dragging the roll, rolling the larger one, or carrying the smaller rolls. I will unroll the rolls and put the gate between two of the rolls.

By now the sun had set and it was twilight. And I was tired - especially after moving those rolls of fencing. To the SW through the trees it was whiteish. Smoke? My south neighbor had burned part of his yard this afternoon which I got to smell as I was downwind. Quickly I found this white to be a shower. It wasn't rain, nor snow, but a combination of the two: graupel. It was time to quit and go inside to make supper.

Eating supper at 9:30 pm - my crazy hours! But then look at the time now! Better go to bed now as I have an errand to run in the morning - or should I say "later this morning".