Fencing proceeding.

The fencing has progressed on the "upper prime pasture".  I always forget how much work there is in building new fence and fixing the existing fence.  It has not eaten up a ton of hours yet, only about 40 hours and probably only needs another 8 hours to finish but it is time.  The tractor was amazing, again.  The holes got drilled in a single day, every hole I thought I would need.  Yes, I had to go back and drill two more holes later.  I used 8 inch wooden posts except where the gates were going to be hung and on that H brace I used two railroad ties.  Unfortunately, I learned a hard lesson about the wooden poles, they are round.  Round poles don't sound like an issue do they?  It is a huge problem.  I was stringing up woven wire that happened to be four feet tall and it is super heavy.  I spent 30 minutes with four fence tighteners trying to get it tight and could barely get it to lift off the ground.  

The solution? Bring in the beast, the tractor.  I hooked a fence clamp up to the fence and chained it to the hook on the bucket and started backing up till the fence stood upright.  Not easy, I had to use four wheel drive and positrack and the fence still stopped the tractor.  I only tore the fence in half, twice with this method.  I was getting ready to attach it when I noticed the far end wooden post had moved.  Yeah, it had moved alright, it was sticking out to the side almost 18 inches, it had twisted in the hole and then bent outward with the weight of the fence.  I had to fix it and ended up pushing it back in place with the tractor.  The hole was right next to the front pasture creek so the soil was pretty wet and had not set up well.  

Gannon helped me a few days.  We have woven wire up on both new sides and now need to string smooth wire.  Both gates need to be hung also.  I had one small area that needed two rock cribs as the fence came up 8-12 inches off the ground.  I tried something different, I wired woven wire to the bottom of the fence, filled that with rocks and wrapped the woven wire over the rocks.  It is basically a rock tube kinda like a door draft tube.  I figure if the door draft tube works to keep the cold air out of your house then my rock tube will serve to keep the sheep from crawling under the fence.  

Once we get the new fence up, the old fence bordering the wheat fields needs to be tightened and metal T-posts pounded in between the old wooden posts.  There is enough woven wire left over that I think once the fence is retightened we will add in the 100 yards of missing woven wire, the rest is already in place.  

Once that fence is completed we can move the 8 month old cows over to that pasture with the horses.  Then we will move down to the lower pasture to create another subdivided section for the momma cows.  By next month I need to be getting at the barn roof so it is imperative to get the fencing done this month.  I need to spray weeds in the next week also.  It truly does never end.