Auctions and corral fence

Saturday I attended another auction. This auction was a general consignment auction therefore it was made up of this and that. The audience was made up of auction regulars (i.e. second hand buyers and "bottom feeders".)

The auction was a hour and half old when I arrived. I doubt I missed much. I hung around and bid on a few items I "kinda" wanted and was out bid. I did get a box of miscellaneous: nuts and bolts, locks, and odds and ends. I wanted the nuts and bolts. I got a bonus as the box also had a plastic parking light cover. Back when I replaced the pole over my driveway, as I took the old pole down one end slid off my stock trailer and broke one plastic parking light cover. I now have a replacement. But, why they make blue covers is beyond me.

Saturday was a rainy day and other than the auction I didn't get much of importance done.

Sunday was a different matter. The weather forecast was for rain later Sunday and rain and maybe even snow chances much of this coming week. And colder. The predicted highs from Monday on were maybe a degree or two above freezing.

Now you all know how I always mention I need to fix fences. Well, Sunday appeared to be "now or never' this year. It wasn't raining when I got up early (for me) Sunday morning. I woke up naturally on only 5 hours sleep. I decided I would go outside and work on my corral fence. I could always rest when I started to rain later.

I went outside right away. I did not eat breakfast or take a shower. "Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200."

What I was most interested in was closing the corral fence section I had taken down a month or so ago, or however long it was. I also wanted to get the new fence posts in as I expected the ground to be frozen after Sunday. Whatever I could get done before the rain started.

It never rained Sunday. I kept working until dark. The only food I had was a pear and a muffin. Too often I found that after having lunch it would start to rain when I returned outside, so I didn't take the chance that would happen again Sunday. Naturally by the time I made supper that night I was starving.

The old fence boards and posts were 8 feet apart. The last 4 feet of fence was barb wire and some odd boards. I had planned on making the old 4 ft section a walk through gate. But I found the poles were 9 ft 2 inches long. A foot was too small for a gate. But what to do with a foot of space. Hmmm...

Also the corral came east then went south. The new fence would be a foot more into the backyard. I didn't mind losing a foot of yard to more corral area but the problem was I used this part of the yard to swing around to park my pickup in the pole building. One foot less would not be good.

So to close the one foot "gap" and also not have the corner interfere with my pickup driving, I angled the fence slightly. No more 90 degree corner.

In angling the corner I decided to also move the fence post next to the water trough. More work I had not planned on doing. But I did it.

Of course the domino theory took place. When I moved the post by the water trough I ended up redoing the water trough. Another unplanned work item.

The water trough sat on some dirt and posts. As with most everything around here, this was old. The dirt was eroding away and the posts rotting.

Over the past few years I had patched things to keep the water through in place and level. Sunday I redid it all. I removed the old posts and dirt and got a couple of cement blocks to set the trough on. The effort was in making it all level.

I also decided to lower the trough slightly. Earlier when "patching" the trough's support I had raised the level of the trough. The better to drink from I thought. Over the years I realized that since cattle were used to putting their head to the ground to eat, they had no problem putting their head down to drink. In fact too high meant their neck would press on the top of the trough when the water level was low.

After "fixing" the water trough I pounded some short boards into the ground around the trough to hold it in place. I have found that a mostly empty water trough can be moved by the cattle.

Now that my water trough diversion was finished I started back on the corral fence. As it was not raining I ended up taking down all of the old fence that ran from the water trough to the hayfield. I was able to put in new posts for this section and the top pole between each post. I also was able to attach all the poles for one section before dark. This is all good as it now doesn't matter if the ground freezes for the year. I can always attach the remaining poles later.

While working on my fence one of my neighbors came over and asked if he, his son, and his son's friend could hunt deer on my land as the kids had a few hours before they had to return to the university in Missoula. While Kelly has yet to get his doe, he hadn't planned on hunting on Sunday, so I let the neighbors hunt on the ranch.

They were out there only a few hours and returned before dusk. The kids had to return to school. Too bad as this was the time when the deer were starting to come out. They did see a buck, doe, and fawn on the other side of the river on the ridge.

Sunday night I was tired. Work, lack of food, and lack of sleep caught up with me. I went to bed early and slept hard.

I woke morning Monday morning to a dusting of snow on the ground. It was good as the Flathead valley did not get the half a foot to over a foot of wet snow SW Montana received. Our white dusting was pretty and helped begin the process of thinking about winter and getting into the Christmas spirit.

The sun came out and where it shown the snow melted. Shaded areas the snow did not melt. I did garden work and miscellaneous other stuff and never got to working on my fence again.

Late afternoon I attended another auction south of town. This was an estate sale held by another auctioneer. It was held in a heated building which was nice. I found the auction to be antiques and collectibles and furniture. The furniture was old and antique and very nice, but nothing I was interested in.

There was only one item I had a slight interest in, a wood two dimensional scene of a buffalo and landscape. It was nicely done but I had no interest in waiting what appeared to be a long time before the auctioneer got to that item. The auctioneer didn't have a good speech as his patter was to matter-of-fact repeat over an dover the price he was asking for.

Several benefits of my new fence...

• I don't have to paint it
• it is stronger than my old fence
  
• it is higher than the old fence. The old fence kept the cattle inside, but I have seen cattle jump the old height of fence when they really wanted to do so.