Fence and gate upgrade

I finally finished a small fence and gate upgrade.  Over the past few weeks the cattle, the heat, and the time spent moving irrigation pipes slowed me down from getting this work done quickly.

The fence and gate in question are between the north and middle pastures.  Lately with Diamond, Maria, and Toby in the north pasture, Toby has been putting pressure on this part of the fence when he wanted to go visit the rest of the cattle.  I had extra cut tree trunks stacked here, but earlier I moved some of them to another area so the irrigation doesn't get them soaked. And Toby likes to push on the cut tree trunks and would knock a number of them over.  The wire in this area is non-barbed wire and was only four strands. 

Thursday "No Tail" walked up the river and went to the neighbor's field as they don't close their gate.  So I put "No Tail" into the north pasture.  Her calf was with the rest of the herd in the south pasture. I didn't have time to herd the calf to her mother.  I had spent three hours moving irrigation pipes that morning as I was again going where the fallen tree trunk was located.  And this time the pipes went under a different part of the tree than last time.  So I had to spend time cutting branches off the tree.  Then when I started the line I found that part way around the sprinkler flow would go against branches that I hadn't cut.  So I had more branches to trim.  Then I had to leave to go to my dental appointment.  

I figured I would reunite mother and calf when I got back home.  When I got back home I found "No Tail" was in the south pasture with the rest of the cattle.  "No Tail" or Toby had reached through the fence wires and pushed lots of tree logs down, and then "No Tail" squeezed through the wires as they were bent out of shape.  Toby, Maria, and Diamond were bigger and couldn't squeeze through - yet.

This morning I noticed Toby had again reached through the fence to knock the logs over.  This time he also knocked off one of the old fence boards.  Even through I had other things to do, I took time (the rest of the morning) to finish the upgrade.  

Days earlier I had finished the work on the gate as it had finally cooled down.  Over the ten years or so since I installed the gate, the gate recently would hit/drag on the ground when I opened the gate to the north.  So I wanted to drill new holes in the post and move the gate higher.  Again a simple project took two days.  My battery powered drill would only have enough power to almost drill a hole.   And then I felt the first hole I had drilled was a little too high.  So I had to drill a lower hole.  In the end three holes were drilled.  And of course the cattle in both pastures came to the gate when I worked on it - to see what I was doing and also they thought I was planning to open the gate to let them in the other pasture.  So they slowed me down.  At one point when the cattle weren't nearby I had the gate open slightly as I worked.  At one point I looked back and one calf had just silently slipped through the small opening.  So I had to herd the calf back to the correct pasture.

The first two photos were taken one after another.  Looking south towards the sun apparently made the photo darker.

Where I had to drill a new hole.

Today after Toby pushed the logs and knocked the board off. I already restacked most of the logs when I took the photo.

The boards I added to the fence I had got from my neighbor Curtis.  He has a portable sawmill and recently he had trimmed a log into boards.  To make the log square to then cut boards, Curtis trimmed off the round sides.  Those are the boards I used as they aren't useful to Curtis.  

I had the boards laying in my corral for a little while and when the irrigation line went through there it got the boards wet.  Wet and dry a few times got the board's bark loose in spots.  That got me started and I used a putty knife to pry off more of the bark.   The bark still on the boards were too hard to pry off.

Now I shouldn't have to worry about the cattle getting through the fence in this area.  And to maybe spend less time restacking the logs.

After I finished the work Maria walked over and let me know she wasn't happy with my work.

A few photos of Toby when I wanted to work on the gate.  The flies are bad on him as his fur is so small and fine.

Also this morning I added another short strand of barb wire to a half dozen fence sections in the area where earlier Toby had pushed and jumped over to get to the cow in heat.  I seen today the wire he stretched earlier was looking a little stretched again.