The section I started rebuilding needed rebuilding. A little over a year ago Tammy helped get the baby calf off the road and back into the hayfield after she crawled through the fence. This section had only four strands of old and loose barb wire on bad posts.
Also my neighbor Dave said their cows were open as they had no bull. While people tell me no fence will stop a bull, I can at least make it hard for Buddy the Bull to get out of the hayfield if the neighbor's cows get too enticing for him. For a bull the old fence would be like getting out of a paper bag. So this fence rebuild just moved up the priority list.
I thought I could get this rebuild done in three days. Over optimistic as usual. The temperature of around 90 degrees also slowed me down. I lost a little bit of weight.
Why I had this timeline is that Friday I would go on an all day hike and Saturday Wyatt was bringing the hay. My neighbor wanted my cattle in his field to eat the grass down and I wanted the cattle out of the south pasture so I could leave the gates open. To get from the south pasture to the neighbor's field we had to pass through the hayfield. I couldn't have the fence down when the cattle were passing through the hayfield in case they made a run for it and couldn't be herded.
Day 1: Monday. I spent over four hours taking down the four strands of barb wire and the posts and boards supported by the wire. I wanted all the posts to be consistent intervals of 8 ft so that meant replacing all but three or four posts as only that number of posts on 8 ft intervals were solid. The rest of the day was spent starting to pull old posts out and putting new posts in.
The old fence was mainly wood posts with some metal posts added later as fixes. My new fence started as three metal t-posts then a wood post. Once I ran out of 6 1/2 metal posts and went to using 6 ft metal posts I switched to two metal t-posts to a wood post. Metal t-posts are less maintenance as the staples work loose on wood posts over time. I don't have enough of either metal or wood posts to make a fence of one type of post. And I find wood posts are better 'anchors' when using a wire stretcher.
Even though the cattle weren't in this field, having a fence down and 'open' made me uneasy.
Trapped one pocket gopher near where I was working.
Day 2: Tuesday. I finished adding the newer posts. The new fence has 76 posts. I added almost 70 posts. This makes the fence around 600 ft long. I just started to string one barb wire when it got dark. Also the mosquitoes were horrendous. I had to keep applying spray as I would sweat it off in the heat. I had to cover 100% as the mosquitoes would quickly find the spots I missed.
Day 3: Wednesday. I thought I could string all the barb wires. But I forgot the old wire was old. One strand was very old and brittle and could not be used. Just rolling it up caused it to break numerous times.
In the evening my older neighbor Daryl came to help. Its sad... a few years ago he had a brain injury and is not the same. We mainly talked. He wanted to be of use so eventually I had him place some wire clips on metal t-posts. He tried. I could place three or four clips to his one. He worked with me until dark, staying even after the mosquitoes came out to eat us alive.
I had other distractions and ended up with only three stands strung. No matter, I will finish the rest Thursday in time to move the cattle.
Day 4: Thursday. While the old fence had four strands of wire, over the years I have been accumulating rolls and rolls of used wire. The new fence would be six - and maybe seven - strands of wire. I got 5 strands in place before it was evening and I had to move the cattle. Five strands were high enough to keep the cattle in the hayfield if needed.
Day 5: Sunday. Once I rest and recover from stacking the hay bales I can surely finish the fence. I'm tired of fencing and want to be done with this. I only got the sixth strand strung.
Day 6: Monday. I had a little room for a seventh strand of barb wire and strung one. Done. Finally. Also finally got the wary second pocket gopher who had kept burying the trap with dirt.
The new fence uses three strands of the old barb wire: one at the bottom and two at the top. The remaining four strands - the important middle section - were newer tougher strands of barb wire.
The strands are tight and the fence solid. I feel much better about the fence.
Before...
After...
An example of patches to the old fence.
All the staples and wire after taking down the fence.
Only a few wooden posts were reused. Here are the boards and posts not reused.
I love my wire stretcher!
Seven strands of barb wire. The seventh strand is partially hidden in the grass.
For the section with 6 ft posts the top two strands are closer together than usual. No matter. More strength against when the deer jump the fence and snag the wire. Less chance of breaks.
Now that my fence has been upgraded my uncles and aunts may have trouble finding their way back to the ranch. The old fence was pretty unique.
Lastly, after I finished the major rebuild I checked the section I had rebuilt back in 2009 after the semi-truck flattened part of the fence. This section has almost an equal number of wood posts and metal posts. I found three wood post were very loose. I added three metal t-posts to support those wood posts. Also quite a number of staples were working their way out of the posts and were loose. Some staples were missing.
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