Pulling trees

After I got the new large bale situated for the cows I decided to pull the two trees that had fallen across the fence into the neighbor's property.  The trees fell a few years ago and initially I waited for the trees to die and dry.  Last year the property was sold but I was too busy to clean up the trees.  The other day I cut the remaining limbs from the trees and cut the ends off them.  Friday afternoon I pulled the trees completely onto my property.

I pulled the two trees next to another tree that had blown over last year, I cut the limbs from, but hadn't cut up into pieces yet for log splitting.  I hadn't needed to cut the tops from these two trees as I easily pulled them.

The trees lay across my barb wire fence pushing it down but not breaking any wires.  Even though I cut all the limbs from the trees I figured the movement of the trees may break the wires.  No wires were broke but the fence wires were stretched and three old wood posts that were on their way to rotting were broke off.

Back home to get four steel posts.  (That's when I saw the cows fighting).

Below, in the foreground, is the remaining stump of the first tree that was blown over.   This large tree was blown into the smaller tree breaking it off leaving the taller stump.

Now that I removed the trees, where are my fence wires?

So what I thought could be a quick fence repair turned into something bigger.  Four new posts and a total of eight fence posts that had to be re-fastened. Add in that I hadn't brought a hammer and needed to remove the staples fastening the wires to the broken wooden posts. Slow going with just a screwdriver.  Add in five loose strands of barb wire to begin with, and one wire a tree had grown around (see below), and my 'quick' repair took the rest of the afternoon. Add in that I had tossed the tree limbs next to the fence not realizing I would later need to access the fence from this side to string the wires and re-fasten them.   Anything to make an annoying job harder.  I was not a happy camper. I should had gotten a clue as to how this day would go when I woke up in the morning with Daisy's back feet against my face as she was stretched out laying and sleeping next to me.

I used a fence stretcher to remove the slack from the five wires and re-strung the wires.  Better to do this than chase cattle later.

The finished result.  Finally.