Corral split fence Winter work

I thought I was done building fence for the year [after all it is mid December now] - but.. surprise! - we had some warm weather last week and the snow melted and the ground thawed.  I love El Nino and global warming.

So I have been able to continue to work on the rebuilding of the fence that splits the corral.   One day I dug and placed another railroad tie.  Another day I nailed boards to that tie, then dug and placed the last railroad tie.  Another day to cut and hang boards on the last two railroad ties.  Today I finished nailing those boards.  It feels so good to have all the ties in the ground and the boards up.

A side effect of taking so long to complete the fence is that I salvaged enough cut log sides this year for the entire fence.  If I'm going to go for the "redneck ghetto" look (as Tammy had called it), I might as well go all out.


The following photo was from 2011 before I rebuilt the corral fence - outer and the split.   Looking back... man, that fence looks flimsy.  I'm talking about the outer corral fence, not the inner fence that is falling down.

This photo is from 2014. 

Here is how the fence looks today.

The "back" side of the fence.

I had a decision to make: which side of the railroad ties to place the boards. It is preferable to have the boards on the side the cattle would push against so the boards aren't pushed off the ties.  If so, then I put the boards on the wrong side of the ties.  That is because I place to hold Buddy south of the fence when he is not ready to romance the cows.  But I decided to place the boards on the north side of the ties because I walk on the north side 90% of the time and I prefer to see the rounded side of the boards instead of the cut back side of them.

Then what about the potential of the boards being pushed off the ties?  I nailed the boards with lots of thick long nails. Still...  if a cow sticks her head through the gaps in the fence and pushes to reach grass on the other side a board can break or pop off.   So I started to cut to length and nail wire fence on the back side of the boards.  I have three sections of fence done with four more to go.

Today the cattle are in the corral eating small hay bales.  I feed Rose south of the fence since the cows still push her around.  Being on the same side of the fence as me she wanted to "help" me with the wire fencing.  Rose... standing on the wire fence is not helping.

Rose

Beulah

Red Angus cow with Buddy in the background.

Panda and other cows