Pulling fence posts

My day...

9:30 am - got out of bed - exactly after 8 hours of sleep. I found the outside temperature was warm - already 50 degrees. Guess it didn't get cold last night. I uncovered my tomato, bell pepper, cabbage, and broccoli plants in my garden.

After a shower and breakfast I sewed a couple pair of pants. The previous day's pants where I tore out one knee and today's pair of pants which are heavily patched and needed more patching. I missed the new holes after washing them earlier.

11 am - I rode over to Tony's place to work more on the fences. I finished removing the wires from the old inner fences. Tony had more fence outside his new vinyl fence but either they were the neighbors fence, else he wanted to keep the other one as it was out of the way behind his vinyl fence fencing off a pond near the river.

We planned on pulling fence posts at 2 pm so after I removed all the wires I pulled a few metal posts that were in low marshy areas and not really accessible with a tractor. The marshy area made pulling the posts doable. Then I started to roll up the wire.

The barbed wire was a pain to roll up as I had not brought any gloves. My hands are a bit sore tonight as the barbs nicked me a few times. The barbless wire was slightly easier to roll up, but all the wires were twisted strands and I found my actions in rolling the wire would also twist the wire. I found the barbed wire would dig into the grass, and all wires would start to fight me more the more wire I rolled up. I rolled up some decent lengths of wire.

I had finished two sections and was working on the barbed wire of the third section when Tony came with his tractor. It must be 2 pm.

Tony had a rectangular piece of metal with two holes that hung from a chain attached to his tractor. I would slide this metal over the metal post and when Tony raised the tractor's loader the metal would catch on one of the post's knobs and the post would be pulled from the ground.

Tony has a smallish Kubota tractor - a good size fit for his property. Even so I was surprised that a few metal posts were hard to pull out of the ground.

One row of fence posts were between a vinyl fence and a slough. While I thought Tony's tractor could fit along the slough, he preferred to pull the posts from across the vinyl fence. These vinyl fences look nice, but I don't think they are very sturdy. I certainly would never have one of these vinyl fences to hold cattle. Horses don't test fences like cattle so they may be fine for horses. I also noticed the fence was looking black in areas close to trees. One may not have to paint these fences, but they "stain" and would have to be washed to maintain their whiteness.

I was careful with the chain and attaching it to the posts and no damage was done to the fence.

The old fences were two metal, one wood post. Once we pulled all the metal posts, Tony removed the metal piece and put a hook on the chain. Then we worked on the wood posts. These posts were much harder to pull. A few posts appeared to be 3 ft deep. I plan to take a tape measure and check the depth as some posts were deeper than I expected. The corner sections were thicker posts and among the deeper posts. Tony had to work his tractor to pull these posts. He would push and pull the posts with the tractor bucket in an effort to wiggle them in the ground, then pull up. Then repeat. Sometimes the left rear tire of his tractor would rise off the ground as the tractor had no weight in the back. I positioned the chain both right and left of center on the bucket but always the tractor would raise on the left side.

We worked our way along the slough as his tractor did fit. It was narrow at the second to last post. This was part of the corner post section and a thicker and deeper post. It would wiggle but not come out. Over and over Tony worked on the post. His tractor's bucket was inches from his vinyl fence and I watched that it didn't hit the fence. The ground had a slight slope and after a while the tractor started to slide towards the slough so I unhooked the chain and Tony repositioned the tractor to try again. I had the chain low on the post and high on the post and low on the post. Finally the post came out of the ground. We decided not to pull the last post as the ground was even narrower and the post was another thick one.

A few other thick posts we left: one we had no success in pulling out and two others that had gates attached to them. I plan to use a shovel to dig these posts halfway down and we will pull them another day.

After we pulled the posts I went back to rolling up wire and finished rolling up the barb wire strand. I rolled one of the barbless wires then called it quits for the day. I will roll up the remaining two strands along this fence, then the four strands of the longest fence tomorrow. I gathered up the posts along the slough and placed them in a pile where I can pick them up easily in my pickup later.

The wood posts are all in great condition with no signs of rot. No rust is on the metal posts or wire. The posts, wire, and gates are all very much worth the effort to remove.

I got home after 5 pm. Joyce had left a message on my answering machine about hiking tomorrow and I called her back. I will have to miss tomorrow's hike as I have an errand to run and can't move the date. I guess the group plans to hike the Boundary Trail. Last year at this time they hiked this trail and I missed that hike as I was replacing my hot water heater. I rarely miss the group's hikes, but this trail must have a hex on it that I miss it each year.

After eating "lunch" and watching the local news and weather I fell asleep. I am not sure why I was so tired as the tractor did all the hard work today. I woke up when my VCR turned on to record "Survivor" on TV.

When the tribal council was occurring on "Survivor" someone called me. "Not now!" I let the answering machine take the call in case it was a telemarketer. I am on the "do not call' list but non-profits and businesses one already use can still call you. My local phone company CenturyTel is extremely annoying with making calls trying to sell me another phone service feature. Whoever called did not leave a message so either it wasn't important or was a telemarketer.

Tonight the sky was partly cloudy. To the NW I saw a light. Initially I thought the light was a star until I saw it move fast across the sky. The speed at which the light moved was either a fast moving military jet, satellite, or the space station. Earlier in the day I saw a vapor trail from a high jet and saw how fast that jet moved.

I believe the light was a satellite or the space station. Most lightly the space station as I believe satellites are either over the equator for a gyro synchronous orbit, else when this far north they do a pole to pole orbit - as I have seen when in North Dakota. The light seemed to be following the U.S. / Canadian border from west to east. In the past when reports mentioned a chance of seeing the space station, the report mentioned looking in the area of the sky where I had seen the light tonight.

The clouds are high clouds and the light would disappear behind them as it moved across the sky. The light was a solid yellow/white, not the green or red that are on airplane wings. It did not blink like airplane lights do. Even when the light was to the NE I could still see it plainly which makes me think the sun that had just set a short time earlier was lighting up the object. It was neat to watch.

Now to eat supper, work on my blog, and try to get to bed earlier tonight.