West corral fence rebuild

Way back the end of April I rebuilt the west side of the corral fence.  Over the years I had amassed enough railroad ties and boards for the rebuild.  The old chain link fence wasn't cutting it anymore, especially since the one horse would push on a number of posts to scratch her butt and cause the posts to lean out.  And, as I planned on getting a bull, I needed a more substantial fence for when I needed it to hold him.

Here is how the corral fence looked this Spring:

The old west corral fence angled outward and wasn't in line with the west corral fence for the loading corral.  This made the rebuild job a little easier as the new fence would be just inside the old fence and I could rebuild the fence while the cattle were still inside the corral.

The pile of rocks were what I had dug out of the ground when digging holes for the railroad ties.

I had to deal with curious cattle.

I put in 12 railroad ties as new posts for the rebuilt fence.  The fence is taller at about 6 ft.  This should discourage any cattle from getting a crazy idea about trying to jump over the fence.


For some of the boards I used cast-off wood from a business that does timber framing for traditional home-building. These were rounded parts of logs they had cut off.   I thought they looked appropriate for my corral fence and wished I had more of these boards for my fence.  Tammy didn't like these log-like boards and she told me they made my corral fence look "ghetto", and that she was looking forward to hear what my Uncles Curt and Larry had to say about my fence as she was sure they would agree with her and criticize my fence.

My "ghetto" fence

In the corner where the west fence meets the south fence I tried to 'notch' the boards a little bit  where they met so each line of boards were roughly the same level as I couldn't make them the exact same level.  I am not a fan of fences where each section's boards are nailed above or below the previous section's boards. That doesn't make for a 'smooth' even line of boards, and to me looks visually sloppy.

The only help I got from Tammy on the west fence was when, after I asked, she helped hold the long log-like boards so I could nail them and have them be straight.  Daisy spent every day 'helping' me as you can see in the video and the photos in the following link.

I have 20 more photos from the rebuild, mainly of the cattle and Daisy.

https://plus.google.com/photos/109566462412251958234/albums/6080666154608193265?authkey=CIXv97ae1oy8Sg


A short video of Daisy 'helping' me while I built the fence:  http://youtu.be/As_XofXQ72w

-