Fence projects
We have a variety of fence-related projects underway - some replacement, some improvements.
With the stretch of split rail fence in front of the house, we added azalea landscaping in various shades of oranges. Should be beautiful next spring!
We have a fencing company coming next week to replace the gnarly old falling-down fence along the front property line. They dropped off some supplies earlier this week, and we will be tearing down (probably just knocking down) the old fence on Sunday. The property line is actually a number of feet past the current fenceline (none of the fencelines on this property actually followed the property), so we have time.
Fencing materials waiting to be put into use. In the background we have Big Red out as we are dismantling the front fence along the driveway. Our fencing guys are going to 1) pull the heavy white wood posts (they are REALLY in there), plus 2) haul away all of our old fencing wire (saving us two trips to the dumps, which is what it took us this week to discard the old wire we took down last weekend in the back.) So we will be completing the entire stretch of this property line with the same fence we used in the back - basically going from the front corner of the goat pasture to the road and from the back corner behind the chicken coop to the back property line.
This stretch of fence isn’t quite as rusty as some of the others, but it’s pretty unsightly and not needed since we are not putting animals in the front.
I started taking some action shots of how we divide and conquer on this task: I use the small clippers to cut away all of the metal twists holding the fencing to the metal T-posts. Steve uses an electric cutting wheel/grinder that is plugged into a generator sitting in the bed of Big Red to cut two things - 1) the heavy-duty metal clip/staples that hold the fence onto the round wooden posts, and 2) cutting the sections of fencing into manageable sections that we can roll/crush/fold up for disposal. Unfortunately, about 2/3rd through the job Steve managed to almost cut his thumb off with his dangerous little grinder, requiring immediate first aid (not pictured.) He’s fine, but honestly he is lucky he didn’t need stitches because believe it or not, for the first week since his very first job in 1986, Steve is without health insurance (mine kicks in next week.) Ugh.
Side stretch of fence being replaced this week - the property line actually runs from about where I am standing to take this picture to the left of that large evergreen.
We have some old cattle panels leaning against this fence, which is why the rotted posts gave away. Good riddance to one of the last stretches of really bad fence!
Another small fencing project we did this week was in the garden - the new grape arbor. We had some leftover split rail fence (we originally had thought we would do the entire stretch above in split rail, but decided that would look a bit “busy”), so we put it to use as the structure to hold up our four new baby grape vines plants.
Placed right behind the raised beds.
We are using a special blue-filmed system for getting the baby grape vine plants off to a good start. Two are plants, and two are bareroot; all purchased online, because apparently you cannot buy a grape plant anywhere in Spokane or Northern Idaho. Stop by in 3 years, and we’ll let you know how it worked out!
Not a fence “project” per se, just me looking through the chicken run fence at Walker the goat who loves to climb trees!
