South hayfield fence rebuild

Since the hayfield south pasture fence rebuild went so well I decided to continue fence rebuilding.  I have a gate I wanted to install in the SW hayfield corner.  That way in the future if my southern neighbor wants my cattle to again eat the grass down in their small pasture I can easily run the cattle into their field and not have my cattle move through a larger area of my hayfield.

As you can see below, in order to move my cattle from my south pasture to my neighbor's pasture, this new gate can be used in conjunction with the corner hayfield south pasture gate I had installed last year.

I also wanted to replace the barb wire gate that was starting to fall down in the middle of the hayfield's south fence.  This is a gate for the Bonneville Power people to access the towers for their easement.

For two of the railroad tires I had a problem digging their holes.  The holes go 30 inches deep and in the middle of two holes, 20 inches deep, I ran into large tree roots.  No trees were around.  No trees since forever.  But larch tree roots decay extremely slowly.  These roots were many, many decades old.

I had to use a somewhat sharp metal bar to break the roots so I could remove them from the holes.

Old tree root removed from the hole

I hadn't planned on rebuilding the fence until later this year. The cattle won't be in the hayfield until after the second hay cutting grows back late this Summer or Fall. However the new renter has a horse and plans on bringing it to this pasture once the horse is trained.  Since the fence rebuild is a complete rebuild it is much easier to be able to take the entire fence down before rebuilding it.  And I could take my time now.  So I rebuilt my fence that borders the pasture now, finishing June 29.  I have a minor section of fence that borders the yard and I left that fence alone.  Their caragana hedge also blocks the way on the other side of the fence.  So the need to rebuild that fence is low.

Again I replaced all the mostly broken wooden posts.  I replaced the 5 and 1/2 foot metal t-posts with 6 foot t-posts.  I had noticed that after I rebuilt the hayfield south pasture fence and made it higher, the deer would now jump over the lower south hayfield fence to reach my alfalfa field.  So I made the south fence higher.   The deer still can jump over the fences but the higher the fence the more they think about it and the more likely they may stay in the neighbor's field and leave my field alone.

Again, lots of posts.   From the corner to the middle gate is 40 posts.  From the gate to the yard is another 17 posts.   The total length including gates is 506 feet.