Fence: board and wire

This week I completed two fencing projects.  Neither were large projects; but between rain, bicycling and shorter days, it is all I got done this week.

First up was the board fence.  If you remember a month or so ago I mentioned that Toby was reaching through the fence from the north pasture into the hayfield to try to reach alfalfa to eat.  The fence held, but I worried.  The north pasture / hayfield fence needs to be rebuilt but so far I had placed some corral panels along the fence.  The panels reached the length except for the last section of fence where Toby was putting his head through.

I was able to put the railroad tie in the ground and nail the boards in one afternoon.  What took so long was finding five boards to nail as a fence.  I wanted five similar boards of about the same length.  I don't mind sawing off a few inches of board but don't want to saw off a foot or more.  I can find other boards that match the different lengths.

I had three boards of different lengths that had bark still on them.  Not tightly as the boards are aged.  I used a scraper and scraped the bark off the three boards. That took time. I used one of the boards in my fence.  It is the second board from the bottom.

The soil has plenty of moisture.  Since we have had over 2 inches of rain this month I hadn't needed to irrigate my hayfield twice.  Who knew we would have so much rain?  The hole for the railroad tie goes down 30 inches.  The soil all the way down 30 inches was moist.  Usually this time of year it dry.

As you can see below I reinforced my boards.  They were solid until Toby started rubbing again them. Then they wobbled. The boards are nine feet long.  The cattle were at the west side of the pasture when I started.  As I started to nail the boards Maria saw me.  She mooed for the others and started to come.  Diamond and Mama and Maria's calf also came.  Toby was laying with the other two calves but he eventually got up and ambled over.  By then I had the bottom three boards nailed to the posts and I had to stop.  I stood on this side of the fence as Toby checked out my tools, boards, wire, etc.  He then was fascinated with my shoe as one foot was under the fence boards.  That is when he pressed against the boards and wobbled them.  I also hadn't sawed off the longer boards and he decided those ends that stuck out past the railroad tie made the perfect thing to scratch his head and face.  After a long while he wandered off.

I would remove the barb wire as I nailed up the boards.  I was fixing the barb wire on the last (right) railroad tie when Toby came wandering over again.  So another delay for me until he wandered off and I could get back to work.

You must admit the board fence looks more secure than the old barb wire fence.  One less thing to worry about.


Today I finished attaching to the hayfield / south pasture fence the roll of field fence seen below.  I started from the south end and covered 21 fence post sections.  168 feet.  Even though I rebuilt the fence with 11 strands of barb wire, some cows still could fit their head through the barb wire to eat from the hayfield.  I wasn't too concerned the cattle would break through the fence, but they were starting to make it lean.  The field fence will solve that problem.

I have 14 fence post sections left to add field fence to.  For whatever reason the cattle haven't put their heads through these sections.  So I can wait till later to get another roll of field fence and attach it this fence.