Working Along the Fence Line

Friends have commented about the amount of time we put in to repair, replace and maintain our fences. With 7 miles of fence on the farm, the opportunities for up-keep on the boundaries are endless. 

It seems like every time we have a section completed, something happens and repairs need to be started. Flooding this fall had certainly took its toll on the fences near the river. The amount of silt that washed downstream tortured the wires, buried several areas and completely wiped out others.

Most of the repairs have finally been completed regarding the flood damaged areas. Now we have turned back to our original fencing project, moving a boundary line fence that had been placed inside the actual perimeter boundary of the farm. As you may recall, this is a three-step process.

1. Tearing out the old fence line and rolling up the barb wire into rolls. This sounds easy until you find that some of the wire has grown in and through trees, been wrapped up by clumps of vine maple and dense brush, and quick-fix repairs from the last 60 years have created snarls and tangles that need to be dealt with.

2. Falling the large fir trees that are between the old fence line and where the new one will be located on the perimeter (20-30 feet farther out), along with brushing out the all the understory of the forest along the new line.

3. Finally, setting posts and stringing 6 strands of barb wire along the new fence line.

The terrain is variable. This area happens to be a small draw that runs water off the hillside during the winter time. The fence has to intersect the water and large post holes are dug to accommodate big, cumbersome  railroad ties that will be used for the posts.

Digging the holes with a post hole digger and shovel through the wet slop is a moist job even if it wasn’t raining at the same time.

To take this picture, I had to stand half-way up the draw to show the orange marker string and the guys working on the post holes. The string, many feet above them is the boundary marker. This draw is steep and the fence will have to be placed along ground level. At this point, the string is kept taut from survey marker to survey marker in order to keep the fence on a straight path.