West side corral, corner

I finished the rebuild of the west side of the loading corral and turned the corner to the north side.

Of course the horses were curious as to what I was doing.

After I removed the corral's old corner post I got an idea.

Uh-oh.

The fence that divides the north pasture in two goes from the west side of the corral to the north fence passing a yard or so west of the hay shed.

Here is a view of the gate in the south side of the corral, the hay shed, and faintly in the background you can see the fence that goes just west of the hay shed.  I had already removed the corral's NW corner post.

This gap between the fence and the hay shed is annoying as it is just large enough for livestock to go in, and of course they do. My goal - when I eventually rebuild the fence - is to move the fence even with the end of the hay shed and eliminate the gap.

The idea I got a few days ago was not to angle or bend the fence from the corral corner to the hay shed, but keep the fence straight all the way to the corral.  Instead of replacing the corral's old corner post with a railroad tie I would move the "corner" to a point four feet east, and in line with the end of the hay shed.  (Note the three vs. four feet is because I believe the dividing fence wasn't straight to begin with.)  This would bend the corral's corner instead of having the corral's west and north sides meet at a 90 degree angle.

Bending the corner would also solve two other problems:

1. the south side of the loading corral is made up of eight foot sections with the last (west most) section five feet in length.  I didn't chose it; that is the original length of the corral.  My solution to the five foot section was to make that section a second corral gate.  If I wanted the railroad tie's placement on the corral's north side to match the south side's tie placement I would need another five foot section, this time not as a gate as I don't need a third gate.  If I moved the corral's corner four feet to the east and then make the next section nine feet, my north/south railroad tie alignment problem would quickly be solved.
 
2. When cattle don't want to be herded in the corral sometimes they stand with their heads in a corner.  This can make herding more difficult, especially when this only leaves their rears to work with to get them to move - and one doesn't want to stand behind agitated cattle!  No corner, no problem.

Bending the corner would lengthen the section from eight feet to a little over nine feet but I did have a few boards that long.  I just had to search for them - naturally - at the bottoms of my wood piles. (Where else would they be?! )

Placement of the railroad tie for the northern end of the corner was challenging.  I had to find the sweet spot to satisfy four things, all of which favored a different location:

1. the west end of the hay shed which was the west most point,
 
2. the south side railroad tie which was an eastern point,
 
3. the length of the boards for the corner section, and
 
4. the length of the next section on the north side that had to be over eight feet in order to get the rest of the north side in alignment, but not too much longer as I didn't have many longer boards.

The tie alignment probably doesn't matter in reality, but to me, atheistically, it does matter.  And this is something I will have to be happy with for a really long time, if not forever.  Those railroad ties should last many decades.


I settled on a spot for the new tie and overall it seems to be a good fit, though I wonder if I should have moved the tie west three or four inches to be in perfect alignment with the west side of the hay shed.  At least judging from one or more angles when I look at the tie and hay shed together.

Here is a view after I got the tie into the ground at the end of Thursday.  The mash-up of boards is so the horses didn't get into the NE pasture overnight.  The boards end where the old post used to be.  And yes, this is how late I often work.

See what I mean about the tie perhaps being a little too much to the east?

It was dark when I had finished so the photos are not the best. I'll try to take more photos once the rain quits. It started raining Saturday night (one day earlier than forecast) and is suppose to rain, and maybe snow, much of this week.