Fence rebuild along the road: short rails

No recent posts about my fence rebuild along the road, but I've been working on the rebuild.  I didn't want to make posts about each section rebuilt as that would get old/boring.  But I got the short rails sections done, so time for a post about it.

These short rails I got from my neighbor Curtis.  These rails are made by a local company that has very old - old - equipment.  I often ride my bicycle by the place when I ride to town.  I should take my camera along some time and take a picture of their cutting equipment as it is outside under a roof.  It is different.

Anyway, they have rejects.  Curtis was able to talk them into selling him a couple bundles of the rejects, and Curtis cuts them up to use as firewood in the large wood stove that he uses to heat his building.  Last month while he was cutting up his last bundle I saw some of the rails that looked decent enough to use as fence rails.  The rails are not perfect and some have cracks in them.  I wouldn't buy any of these rails.  But they are good enough to use as rails in some of my fencing.

Initially I just wanted three rails as I thought they would be good to use where my fruit tree area fence meets up to my NE pasture fence.  My other rails are 16 ft long and where the two fences meet needed a rail much less than 16 ft.   Curtis's rails are 8 ft. 9 inches long.  I later learned the last section where the two fences meet was a little under 6 ft.   So both type of rails were too long.  I didn't want to cut any rails so I went with the 16 ft rails as they looked better going past where the two fences meet.   Having a rail go only 3 ft past looked off.  10 ft looks okay.

When going through Curtis's bundle I found 18 rails that seemed decent.  I gave Curis some of my logs in exchange for the rails as Curtis preferred that instead of money. 

18 rails... I had enough rails for 6 fence sections.  Not enough rails for a complete fence section.  Okay, what to do with them?  I decided to put the rails on part of the fence rebuild along the road.  I had already used three 16 ft rails for the fence from the south end.  I will use the 8 ft rails for the fence rebuild from the north.  What the heck.  It may not be perfect but I will have less of the old barb wire fence along the road.

It should be easy and quick to rebuild these fence sections.  But no.  The days are getting shorter and colder.  The inversions - as you can see in the last photo - settled in.  To dig a hole for the last number of posts meant I had to use an iron bar to break the frozen ground initially.   No frost at the start, then an inch of frost, then two inches, then three inches.  Once I got past the frost I could use a post hole digger to dig the rest of the hole.

Here are the Curtis rails sections.   Dang, they only made it about halfway across.  Oh well, better than nothing.

Donna's fence

A few or more years ago Donna's daughter got a place and took possession of her horses. Since she didn't have any more horses, over the years Donna worked on taking down her fence for the horses.  Fortunately Donna kept the posts and the barbless wire.

Donna's daughter and husband are planning to move back to the Kalispell area, and found a place they are interested in buying.  The property is not fenced.  Lots to do when one is moving.  And moving horses is even more work.  I told Donna she should re-fence her property in case the daughter moves before she can fence her new property.  Well... Donna decided that was a good idea.

This afternoon I brought my metal fence post pounder and I pounded back into the ground quite a number of posts.   Flathead Valley has been stuck in a strong inversion for almost a week and the temperatures do not get above freezing.  So the ground is freezing up.  It is frozen two to three inches down.  Better to do the fencing now, and not several months from now, if and when the daughter moves.  The ground will be more frozen then.   A little more effort to pound the posts into the ground today, but I got it done.

We left rolls of the barbless wire along the fence line.  Donna said she will install the barbless wire over the next few days.

Barbless wire

Fence rebuild along the road

Today I did a start on a rebuild of the fence along the road for the fruit tree area.  That is because I had an extra three rails left.  Actually I have 6 rails left but three of the rails may be put here or in another area, I haven't decided.

The fence along the road is a barb wire fence.  A fence I haven't fixed or upgraded ever.  But every time I let the cattle into the fruit tree area I keep an eye open in case they break the barb wire fence and get out on the road.  So far they haven't.   But I get nervous and rebuilding this fence is on my to-do list with lots of other stuff. 

I was able to complete this three rail fence section today.  I had started yesterday but all I had time for yesterday was to take down this section of the barb wire fence.  It was some work as apparently my dad had patched and patched this section of the fence.  I forgot to take a picture of the old fence section before I took it down.

Doesn't the rail fence look better and more solid than the barb wire fence?

Here is one of the old fence posts.  The post is solid and heavy except for where the post met the ground.  It had completely rotted.  Someone had put a metal post into the ground and this wood post was wired to the metal post and barb wires to hold the wood post up.

Barn window

I patched the barn window last week. I happened to have my camera with me today so I took a photo of the 'window'.   The window is made up of six small panes of glass.  Over time a pane would fall and break.  I have window blinds in the window so that put off my fixing the window.  Last week I saw I was now down to two panes of glass.  So I boarded up the window for now. 

Over a decade ago the other window was the same: six small panes of glass.  Instead of fixing/replacing the small panes of glass that had broken, I redid the window frame and then had a large pane of glass made for the window.  I plan to do the same for this boarded up window next year.

South of this hay feeder the ground is not level.  Some years ago the ground next to the feeder was higher.  Over time the cattle standing and eating from the feeder caused the ground closer to the feeder to sink and move away.  If you look close you may see that the bare ground is higher, with the highest point being where the bare ground and grass meet.  On my to-do list for next year, use the tractor to scrape and move the higher dirt to be next to the feeder.   Otherwise next Spring water will stand next to the feeder from the snow melt.

Fence rebuild. NE pasture connection

Saturday I finished the fence rebuild where the yard, fruit tree area and NE pasture meet.  I rebuilt this short piece because the rails on the rebuilt section went past the connection.   If I put the old fence boards back they would not align well and would look crooked and ugly.   I used some 8 ft rails I have.  I also did a little cutting on this end to make the rails more aligned.  I think it worked.

The 8 ft rails were a little longer than the old boards so I had to move the fence post over a foot.  I preferred to cut the fence boards a foot shorter than cut the rails.

I am now done with the fence rebuild in this area.  I'll work on the rebuild where the red corral panels are another time.  Next year hopefully, as I prefer not to wait another six years before working on the corral panel fence section.  The board fence that goes to the left... I'll leave that alone for now.   Much of that board fence is good; so a rebuild of this fence is a low priority for now.  I have other fence areas that are a higher priority.

Frost. Fence rebuild.

Long night of below freezing temperatures last night and into the morning.  Very frosty last night.  The frost in the shady areas lasted long.   Some frost didn't go away.  The photo of the rails was taken at 4 pm.

Over the past week I re-built two more sections of the fence.  I want the posts to be a certain height.  I had finished this section when it got dark. The next day I didn't want to re-dig this post so I used this jack to raise the post.  It worked.

The middle post of this fence section was crooked.   It took some effort to make sure the side against the rails was straight.  The part in the ground was crooked, so I had to dig the hole a certain way to make everything work.

I almost got this part of the fence done.  I made it past the yard / NE pasture fence.  This section of the fence is where the cattle had pushed off the boards to get into the yard this past Summer.

You can see the two red corral panels at the far end.  Coming from the other end is a board fence I had rebuilt back in October 2017.  At the time I didn't make it to the yard / NE pasture fence. So I had put up three corral panels to act as a temporary fence.  I haven't worked on it since as I had other more important things to do.  Six years.  Wow.

https://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2017/10/fruit-tree-and-garden-gate-replace.html

There is 18 ft 4 inches between the two sections of fence.  Rails are 16 ft long.  I haven't decided if I will make more of a board fence or a rail fence or a combination.

Time is running out before a hard freeze this year.  I have some other rail fence work left to do as you can see the rails that are left in the photo near the top of this post.

A view of the rail fence I re-built this Fall.  It looks nicer than the old board fence.

Pocket gopher traps. Fence.

Today I removed the last pocket gopher traps from the hayfield.  No more pocket gophers were trapped.

Also near the traps I fixed a couple of broken fence wires.   Then neighbor across the road has some horses eating his field grass down.

Cattle, feeder, rain

Today it was time for another large hay bale for the cattle.  But first, in the morning, I put out a small hay bale in the corral and then let the cattle into the corral to eat it.

Then I saw the salt feeder was tipped over.   Haynes! Stop doing this.  I put the feeder back in place.  Maybe I should wrap wire around the feeder to hold it in place like I did to the other feeder.

It had rained earlier, but not now.   So I cleaned my woodstove, ate breakfast, then took a shower.   Now time to put out a large hay bale for the cattle. But now it started to rain.  Ok, I'll wait until it quits raining.  But it didn't.   Finally at 4 pm I gave up and went out and put out a large hay bale in the rain for the cattle.

Bicycle ride. Tarp.

This afternoon I rode my bicycle to town to pay my property taxes.   I tried to pay them last Friday but the county office was closed on Friday due to Veteran's Day on Saturday.  On the ride home today I was almost run over.  I was riding on a road near a curve and also that has a dead-end street on my right.  On the dead-end street a pickup was waiting at the stop sign.  I saw a car coming on the road from the other direction.  Then I paid more attention to the pickup as cars seldom turn onto the dead-end road, and vehicles don't like waiting at stop signs as will pull out in front of me.

As I got to the intersection the oncoming car did also and then it made a left turn to go onto the dead-end street.  I braked hard and turned right as much as I could to avoid the car.  It wasn't looking good but I slowed and turned enough that I went against and then along with the side of the car.  I put my left hand on and against the car to keep from falling over and into it.  I made it as the car passed and I was able to stop without falling over.   Barely.

I was going to chew the driver out as I was not happy, but he was nice and sorry and apologetic and said that he didn't see me as he was also watching that the pickup didn't pull out in front of him.  I had braked so hard that my left brake cable broke.  He offered to buy me a new cable.  I gave him my name and number, so we'll see.   I rode home the seven miles carefully as I had only one working brake on my bicycle.

This was really close, and it could have been really bad for me.

When I got home I replaced the brake cable as I have extra cables from bicycles I had made into parts.

Yesterday when Donna and I went to Mable's place for me to fix her roof, I saw a tarp in the ditch as Donna was waiting at a stop sign to turn onto the highway.   Maybe some tears, but the tarp looked good.  So I jump out of her car and grabbed the tarp and put it in her car trunk. Yet another thing I found on the side of the road.   I think Donna rolled her eyes when I wanted to get the tarp.   While I was on my bicycle ride today Donna stopped by and dropped off the tarp.

A minor tear or two.  The tarp is much better than my previous tarp I had used to cover the hay baler last Winter.   So I put the tarp over the baler and tied it down to keep it from blowing off in strong winds.  I used a broom to sweep the leaves off the baler.  I put the broom down on the back of the baler while I pulled the tarp onto the baler.  Then the broom was missing.  It somehow slipped into the baler somewhere.  I had to get a flashlight to look into the baler as the broom couldn't be found.   I thought I may have to get the tractor hooked up to the baler to open it so I could search it better.  But I finally felt the broom and could pull it out.

The broom had fallen in where the belts are located.

Covered for the Winter.

The previous tarp I had used on the baler I had draped over the haybine earlier.   The cattle, of course, had 'played' with the tarp.   I had to sweep leaves off that tarp and the haybine as the haybine wasn't completely covered.   That tarp was so bad I had to cut it into sections, and also throw away some parts of the tarp.   Finally I got the haybine covered again.

So... did I work on my fence today?  What do you think?   Nope.   Another waste of a good weather day.  Rain and cold are forecasted for tomorrow.

Mabel's car port roof

Today Donna and I went back to Mabel's place and I patched her carport roof where a branch had fallen through.  This time Donna brought her roof tar 'goop'.   The previous time I had bent the metal back into shape to make the hole smaller so it would be easier to patch.

Here are Edward and Donna.  Mabel is in her house.  The other side of her house roof is where I had fixed/patched it some weeks ago.

This is the tree I had cut down and up last week.  The lower left corner shows the part of the tree that had broken off in the wind.

Here are two of the six dead trees Mabel has left on her property.  Tall aren't they.

Pocket gopher, cattle, gas station, fence

The hayfield is eaten down.  I don't want the cattle to overeat the field, so I put them back into the pastures and am now feeding them hay.   When I was in the hayfield to pick up the couple items people tossed out of their cars and threw into the hayfield, I noticed fresh dirt mounds.  Pocket gopher(s) are back.  I set a few traps and today I caught a pocket gopher.  That makes 98 this year.  One less than what I caught last year.

I put out a large hay bale for the cattle this afternoon.  The cows were laying in the middle pasture.  Haynes was laying in the south pasture as he had walked the river to get there.  Once I put the hay bale in the north pasture I opened a gate to let the cattle go to the hay.  Then I had to go to the south pasture and open a gate there to let Haynes come and join the cows at the hay.  He moseyed along.

Then I drove my tractor to the nearby gas station to fill it up for the Winter.  I prepaid for the diesel.  When I walked back to the pump, the pump wasn't active.  The gas station had just lost power.  While they worked on the problem I cleaned the tractor cab's windows.  The outside of them.  Then the inside of them.  They still didn't have power to run any of the pumps.  And I learned that the Wendy's restaurant next door also was without power.  Okay... I wasted enough time waiting.  I was able to get the station to give me my money back.   They'll have work to do once their power is back on to void my prepayment at the pump.

I went for a long bicycle ride to return an item to the library.   When I got home I realized that I needed to put out a new salt block in the north pasture's salt feeder.  Then I saw the feeder's one end was broken.  I got nails, a hammer, a board and fixed it.   Then I noticed the wooden hay feeder in the corral had two boards "v"d up.  Really?!!!   The boards had enlarged when they got wetter.  I thought I had fixed this the last time they were wet.  So I cut one board to make it narrower.

Then I got to work on my fence rebuild.  I got one rail cut and nailed to the posts and it was then dark.  Only one rail today.    I ain't getting much fence work done and Winter is coming.

Another fence section rebuilt, and Mabel's roof and tree

Yesterday I finished another section of my fence rebuild.   The rebuild is going slow.  This section took me three days.  I should be able to rebuild a section each day, but daylight is shorter and other things also get done.

One of the other things is that on Thursday afternoon I spent time helping at Mabel's house.  High winds earlier in the week broke off part of another dead tree.  The broke off tree section put holes in the metal roof of her car port.  I nailed down a new sheet of metal roofing over the section with a large hole.  Another section needs the 'goop' I used when repairing her house roof a few weeks ago.  Donna didn't bring the 'goop', so that will be done another time.  I also nailed down a few other metal sections where the impact popped out their nails.

I chainsawed the broken tree section.  Then I looked at the remainder of the standing dead tree.  The tree trunk was straight and not leaning.  Most of the side branches were gone.  The tree was still tall even though it was now shorter.   I looked and looked and thought I could cut the tree down as there was a section of the yard where the tree could fall without causing damage.  If I left the tree alone then some year it would fall over and potentially fall on power lines one way, or the house another way, or the car port yet another way.  The odds the tree would hit something were higher than the odds the tree would miss everything.

Mabel's live in friend also thought we could cause the tree to fall the 'correct' way if I cut the trunk in a particular way.  So we went at it.  But slow.  I made the cuts so the tree should fall a certain way.  But that is not a guarantee.   Maybe there is a lean I could not see.  I cut then stopped.  Listened for any cracking by the tree.  None heard.  We tried to push the tree the way we wanted but the tree stood without any movement.  Then more cutting, stopping, listening, pushing.  Over and over as I didn't want anything unexpected to happen.  The window for a successful fall was good, but not large. 

At the high end cut, the side we didn't want the tree to fall, I then pounded two wedges into the cut so the tree wouldn't get the idea to lean back that way.  I cut some more on the opposite side.  Then I was able to get the wedges completely pounded into the cut.  We still couldn't push over the tree, or even make it wobble.  I made some more small lower cuts on the side we wanted the tree to fall.  I then started to hear a few cracks.  We then pushed on the tree and it started to make more cracking sounds and started to fall over the right way.  Once the tree started to fall we jumped back away from the back of the tree in case it bounced on the ground and then went backwards.  It didn't.

Then I cut the tree into short sections that a person move for cleanup and also could later split for firewood.  I used more than a tank of gas to cut the tree down and then in sections.  That problem is now solved.  Mabel has a few more dead trees.  But they are very tall and the area for them to fall when cutting the tree near the base is small to none.  Mabel will have to hire a tree service where they cut the tree from the top and then down lower.   Today was very windy.  I wonder if another section of a dead tree broke off.

Here is a photo of the tree branches I had cut a few weeks ago on my tall box elder trees.  I stacked them next to the logs I have yet to split for my wood stove.

My rebuilt fence section.

Two bucksaws

If you remember, back when I cut tree branches at Donna's place this Summer, my bucksaw broke.  It couldn't be fixed.  Bucksaws appear not to be common.  I did find some on Amazon and Ebay.  Expensive.

Last month I saw a bucksaw on the local auction site.  I wasn't able to see it in person so I didn't bid on it as I tend not to bid on stuff I only see a photo of.   That bucksaw sold for $31.    This Monday I was able to see in person two bucksaws up for bid at the auction site.  I bid and got them.  One other person also bid against me and I ended up paying $50 for the two bucksaws; else I would have gotten them much cheaper.   But now I have a bucksaw again for the times that a bucksaw comes in handy.

Fence work and cattle

Yesterday I let the cattle into Ruth's field.  The hayfield is getting eaten down and it is getting closer to the time to put out a hay bale.  So I let the cattle into Ruth's field to do a little more/last cleanup.   I didn't have my camera with me, else I would have had a video of the cattle running past the gate into Ruth's field.  Haynes was in the back and once all the cattle were through the gate he began to run so he wouldn't be left behind.  Haynes is so big he reminded me of a buffalo running.  I wish I had my camera.

Lots of rain off-and-on since last week.  More like "on" than off.  I did get a little more fence work done.  I got the last section built to the corner.  I also got the gate hung.  And the rest of the poles laid out.  And the rest of the matting/tarp pulled out of the ground.

Old gate and new gate.

The rest of the way to go to the north pasture.  I got the rest of the rails figured out and laid out after I took this photo.  Since the rail lengths differ by an inch or two I had to find the ones of the same length for each section.
 

The rebuilt fence to the corner and the gate hung.  Due to the driveway, I curved the last section slightly to make it a foot or so further from the driveway.   Last year the guy who bought the steers got too close with his stock trailer and bumped and broke the end fence post that was rotting.

Rain is in the forecast for much of this week with a few breaks.  I'll try to get more fence rebuilt as time is running out before Winter really arrives.

Tree trim and rain

Yesterday I did a little tree trim.  This tree is next to my well's little building.   Last year I trimmed some of its upper dead / dying branches.  https://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2022/09/trimming-tree-branches-on-tree-in-yard.html     This year I had two more dead branches to cut off.

I cut the two dead branches.  I also used the chainsaw to trim the top of the trunk as it was somewhat dead.  To me, it was annoying to look at when I looked up.

Good thing I did the cutting yesterday.  Today it rained non-stop all day.  The temperature all day was either 33 or 34 degrees.  A cold wet day with snow and then rain.  A tough and annoying day.