Fence, deer, gophers

I worked on my fence this afternoon when it "warmed" up. If you call 30 F "warm". Actually, first I pruned my apple trees. As pruning is not a 'non-stop' activity my hands got cold. That changed when I worked on my fence.

I completed the remaining 'major' work on the fence. I attached all the poles to the posts. I discovered that one post was not straight. When I initially built the fence I measured along the ground where to dig the posts. The first poles I attached between the posts were the top posts. Somehow one post was slanted a few inches and at the bottom the south pole did not reach all the way while the north pole was a few inches too long. *sigh*

I dug on the south side of the post. While the ground is now frozen, only the top few inches are frozen. I was able to dig down and then move the bottom of the post over to the correct spot using a sledgehammer.

On all the poles I cut flat notches on each end where the pole attaches to the posts. This way the pole will sit flat against the post and have little chance to 'roll' and have the nails loosen and come out. I put in two long nails on each end of the pole and I was in the process of putting the second nails in when Kelly returned from hunting. By the time we finished talking it was too dark to nail.

Tonight four bucks were out and about and no does. That is the way it works - have an "A" tag and the does come out. Have a "B" tag and no does. Of course I imagine the bucks were frustrated too. Kelly has a doe scent spray and he said he could see the bucks sniffing the air. That probably made the bucks even crazier.

Even though the top layer of ground is frozen the pocket gophers are still active. I trapped three today. I even got the 'problem' pocket gopher. For the past week this gopher kept coming out the other side of the trap then plugging the hole in the trap from the outside rather than go inside the trap to plug the hole. The other day I found where the gopher came out of the ground to do this and set a second trap there. Bingo. Got it.

Initially I thought of forgoing resetting the traps due to the frozen ground. But I looked at the area left to trap and I am getting close to the south hayfield fence. Another week to ten days (hopefully) and I may make it to the fence. So I found more gopher mounds/tunnels and set the traps. At least tonight I quickly found the gopher tunnels. Recently I have had to dig and dig before finding the tunnel. By now I am pretty good at finding the gopher tunnels but this area seems to be a combination of crumbly soil and gophers who seem to be digging exploratory holes/mounds of dirt and not an actually tunnel complex.