Thursday, April 29, 2010

Fence Me In

With the beautiful warm weather we have ha this spring the grass in the pasture is growing like crazy and producing more than the cows could ever eat. After the hard winter we had this year our hay supply has been milked dry, and now that we have another group of cattle we are going to need even more hay for this next winter. So to help make sure we will have plenty of good thick hay to mow later this spring, we are gonna pull the cows off some of their pasture. To do this we needed to build a temporary fence to keep the cow off. How hard the fence is to build, depends on what type of fence you build. On this day we are just doing one strand of smooth electric wire fence, so it's nothing to hard, and since the ground was soo wet when we were building this fence, it makes driving the post even easier!
Ya start on one end with a brace post or something very solid to tie to.
Ya tie the two posts together to give stability to the fence when you go to tighten it.
After you have strung the wire out you must corner it off and tie it off.
In order to get it tighten the fence up you must use a fence stretcher and ratchet it to the tensions you need. If you bite your lip it makes this process a whole lot easier!
Ya gotta "jump" the current at the corners. If the wires share an insulator then this is no problem, but here we couldn't do that, so a simple wire works here. I was told by Caleb not to use this photo cause he used an ugly wire in this jump. But I don't listen very well...it's true, just ask my mother....anyways I didn't listen and used the picture anyways. Seriously ya'll don't care what the wire looks like.
 
Now that the wire is strung, it's time to drive some posts into the ground.
And there is no one more qualified to do this than my wonderful husband.

He makes this look fun and easy.

Ok, maybe not so fun.

Ok, maybe not so easy.

So he just makes this look like work.
 After you get the post pounded into the ground, and the driver thrown back onto the truck...
....clip an insulator onto the post....
...secure the wire in place....
 
....load up and head on to the next stop. 
After all that hard work ya might deserve a water break, just maybe, if you're lucky.

While on break I made Caleb take my picture.  
 Hold the button halfway down and focus...
...seriously I give up. Give me back my camera!
Finally a good picture, thank you very much!
I work too....I promise I do, but unless I make Caleb take my picture, ya'll don't get to see that.
He was havin' way too much fun...and it looks like he ate a smurf along the way. (by the way - Caleb has never seen a smurfs cartoon...how sad is that!)
With that being said, I'm shuttin' the gate and headin' home. Enough of this crazy work stuff!!

9 comments:

  1. Ah the joys of running fence! I know them well! We recently had to run electric along our pasture, well...new electric since what we had for the hogs didn`t seem quite high enough to keep steers in. Who knew?! =)

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  2. Seriously never seen the Smurfs? You so need to find at least one episode for him to watch!!!

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  3. Feral Female - I can't imagine a hog fence keepin' in steers...we have a hard enough time keepin' our cattle in with a cattle fence!

    Nicole - I know isn't that soo wrong!! One of these days I will make him watch some episodes with me so he can see all the fun he missed out on when he was a child!

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  4. First off it is not fair that Caleb is so tall. TNT is 5'7" and I'm 5'5" so when we built a goat fence a few summers ago we had to stand on the back of the pickup and pound the big posts in. We used the wooden fence posts for the corners and we used a post hole digger to do it. But we rigged it up on the forklift and I was running that while TNT told me when to lower the forks. I'm sure you can imagine what a great experience that was.

    Second, TNT made me pound the smaller posts in with a sledgehammer. Do you know how tired you get after pounding in over 100 posts? VERY TIRED.

    Third, picture #12 cracks me up. Talk about an action shot! lol

    Fourth, never seen the SMURFS? Are you kidding me. He must not have been a child of the 80's then! ;)

    Finally you are too cute!

    Happy Weekend.

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  5. oops margie is me.

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  6. lol....Carrie you crack me up...I was tryin' to figure out who margie was. I feel your pain on hammering in the small post...I had to hammer in those little post in when I was younger and I was always hittin' my hand more than the post.
    Also I am pictureing you guys staning on the back of the truck bed pounding in post and it is crackin' me up!

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  7. Ah, fence building. The husband had his own fence building business for over 10 years. I've help build a fence or two! But I never use the t-post driver cause his weighed over 50 lbs!

    Only did one electric fence, here at the house. Didn't work for our cattle. They have to have at least 5 strands of barbwire.

    No smurfs? You have to be kidding!

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  8. Carrie @ comfortedbyGod.blogspot.com

    Hi Janet! That looks like a lot of work. But yall make such a cute couple working together out in the field! You know your husband is secretly proud of you that you work alongside him. What a great wife!

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  9. Soon family and friends will be on their way to the Carolinas and looking forward to visiting you and the Queen City, so why are you stressing?plastic fencing

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