When NOT to build a fence

Welcome back!

I hope you were able to read through some of my blog posts on Tomorrow's Wishes. I admit, it is kind of all over the place, (kind of like my mind on most days) but it does have a lot of cool posts.

Anyway,  I wanted to write about a few of our bigger projects we have taken on since moving to "the country" We decide to do a lot ourselves; for one, to save money and two, well, yup to save money. Because once you own property, horses, a barn, and all that goes with it, you no longer have any money! ;) There is always something to do, fix, or build.

Our first big project was the pasture fencing. I was so eager to have the horses with us, that two days after we moved in, I was already working on my husband to get them here. I had been driving thirty minutes each way for over two years to be with them, now that we had moved, it would be over an hour each way, and honestly, I wanted them here! After all, that was one of the reasons we moved to the country.

My husband wasn't as excited to get started, I figured out why as we got into it all.

You know, when I pictured moving to the country, I kind of pictured a cute country home with a big front porch. Me and my husband sipping sweet tea, sitting on our porch swing watching the grass grow. Later in life (MUCH later kids, don't get any ideas!) the grand kids would come over and run around chasing chickens. We would hear the horses whinny as I rang the dinner bell calling everyone to the house for a fried chicken dinner. NEVER in my dream world was I doing hard labor, dang it!

WHAT were we thinking! WHAT did we get ourselves into?

Before I get into this...a small disclaimer: We can't tell you what type of fence works for your needs, we can only tell you what worked for ours, and we can tell you (with certainty) when NOT to build one, and if you live in Missouri...that would be in the middle of August!

So to get the horses here and for me to basically shut up about it, we put up temporary fencing. I wanted to just start on the permanent, but my husband, who most likely didn't want to hear me whining anymore, thought this would be a quicker way to get them here. Our son came out to help, father son bonding time commence.

It really was just metal t-posts and electric wire, nothing fancy, but it would do the job temporarily until we figured the rest out.

It was only July at this point, but it was still hot! We were driving in metal t-posts, but at least we hadn't started digging the holes yet!

Once we finished the temporary fencing we brought the horses. This is a picture of the introduction of our Quarter Horse to the herd.

Left to Right: Half Shy, Roxy, Rocket, and Tanner

Then in a blink, we started on the permanent fencing.

It was now August and let me tell ya, Death Valley has nothing on Missouri's humidity, especially when you are working with your husband on a two man auger digging fence post holes. Not to mention Missouri clay is the worst to dig in, we looked liked Herman Munster with all of the mud on the bottom of our boots.

Nooooo I am not going to post a picture of me all sweaty and gross! 

Needless to say, it was a long, hot, humid summer with tempers running just about as hot as the temps outside. As we worked on putting up the pasture fencing I was desperately trying to prove that a woman can do whatever a man can do. 

It played out something like this...

Husband: "Can ya go get me that bag of concrete? (sarcastically) You can lift it right?"

Me: (confident grin on my face) "Ummm, yeah,  a woman can do anything a man can do!" 

I proceed to walk over, reach down and lift the bag of concrete up...to about my knees, I'm struggling. 

(husband starts laughing) 

Me: "Ya know most men don't want their wives doing manual labor!" 

Husband: "Sooooo, then you are admitting you can't lift it?"

Me: "No! I can lift it!"

(more laughter)

Me: (mumbling as I struggle to get the bag to him) "Here!" It hits the ground with a thump.

Man, it was a long day and we were both at about our breaking points. We were digging the umpteenth fence post hole. We were at the corner of the pasture, a part of the property that happens to be close to the road. I'm being flung around like a rag doll trying to hold onto the auger as we try getting through the Missouri clay. He's yelling at me to hold it in place. 

Husband "Hold on to it!"

Me "I AM!!!!"

Husband " For (bleep) sake, seriously!" 

Me "You're an (bleep)!"

Husband "Come on we need to go down another foot!"

Me "Seriously, I think it's deep enough!"

Husband "No it isn't!"

Me "Yes it is!"

Husband "OK stop, let's take a break."

We stop, catch our breath, and dump water over our heads to cool off. It is so humid it feels like we have bricks on our chest. I can feel my heart pounding in my head, and we are both just beat. We are both soaking wet, and I'm looking like Alice Cooper with my mascara running down my face.
I know, yes I wore make up, ha ha, some country girl I was. I've come along way since then, you should see me now when I'm working outside...yikes!

So we are now standing over the hole, well actually leaning forward with our hands on our legs trying to catch our breath still, and we look up at each other. The hole clearly isn't deep enough. My husband looks down again, wipes his forehead and says,"Yup, it's deep enough" 

Of course you would think I would be happy about this, because I did NOT want to get on that auger again, I mean I was happy he said it was deep enough, however...blame it on the heat...

Me "Ohhhhh reeeeaaaally! Well I just said it was and you freaking yelled at me!" 

Husband "It is 100 freaking degrees out here, so yes, yes I yelled at you!" 

Did I happen to mention my husband is from New York, he's lost a bit of his accent, but when he's angry...oh it comes back!

Just about this time, when we are clearly at our worst, I look up at the road and seemingly out of nowhere, a man on a bicycle goes by. 

I mean come on! We are in the country, it is a two lane road with no where to go, where did this guy come from?!

There is no recovering from this, he clearly heard our entire argument based on the s@#t eating grin on his face. 

He slowly peddles by us, I am assuming his bike riding slowed quite a bit once he was in ears range of us, he looks at us, nods and says "How's it going?" 

We both nod back silently thinking to ourselves "How the (bleep) do you think it's going!?" 

Then, with a bigger grin, the man looks at my husband and says... "Nice shirt." I swear I could hear him laughing as he peddled off.

We were both at a loss, then I look at my husband's shirt and start laughing hysterically! 

I had went on spring break with my oldest daughter that year and walked into a gift shop, saw the perfect shirt for my husband. It was a grey t-shirt with a huge blue ribbon on it that said...Trophy Husband. Bahahaha!

Well it did lighten the mood a bit. We apologized to each other, gave each other sweaty hugs, and blamed it on the heat. As we were taking a break under one of the trees admiring our hard work we started talking about the day and laughing. 

Me "Well, I guess we are never going to meet any of the neighbors that live close to us."  

Husband "I think you're right."

(Laughing)

Me "He must have thought we were ridiculous."

Husband "I'm sure he did!"

Me "OK so you know when you asked me to go get the hammer earlier? I might have walked up behind you with it over my head mumbling...I'll give you the flipping hammer alright"

Husband (laughing) "And I might have walked up behind you earlier with my hands up like I was going to choke you."

(More Laughing)

Yes, it was a long hot summer, but we did finish the pasture and it looks great! I mean, you have to have a few good stories to tell or it's really not worth it! And the horse seem to enjoy it.

We did learn quite a few things our first time doing this and thought I would share some of those with you.

My personal top 10...in no particular order.

1. DO NOT dig fence posts in August in Missouri - it is way to hot! Although, I do think I lost a few pounds that summer.

2. DO NOT put up your fence and attach the wire on the INSIDE of the pasture - It will eventually pull in, I did try telling my husband this one but he is one of those that has to do it first, then realize it's wrong. He's just wired that way. It's all is still standing....for now.

Just in case...we did add some anchors to the corner posts. We just added white coated wire and attached it to a rather long ground anchor. So far...so good. (You can see it in the picture below)

3. INVEST in a Spinning Jenny. OMG if you don't, and your wire jumps off the make shift spool you have set up, you quickly get a huge knot of wire that is extremely hard to straighten. THAT is another whole story, we won't go into!

4. THINK AHEAD about the placement of your fence posts - OR when you start construction on your barn...they will rip out all of your hard work. (crying)

Yes, three of many that were taken out. 

Make sure you listen to the kid at the farm store when he tells you how to measure for your gates, even if the hubby thinks he knows more, I tell ya those kids know what they are talking about. And that old saying measure twice, cut once...yup that goes for measuring fence post placements to!

Let's just say it was a joke among our barn builder guys "Man, I don't think I've ever seen a drive with a double gate and a huge fence post right in the center of it. bahaha" Yes, we had to put in a post because the gap was to big.  But no worries, they had to pull that one out to. But, ya know...

5. TRY Timeless T-posts, like these from Centaur Direct. They have held up great! Our horses have literally ran into them, they bend over but come right back. We have been through three summers and coming up on our third winter with no problems. I have even run into them, several times, with the John Deer (shhh).

6. USE coated wire, it looks great and holds up well. We used White Lightening coated electric wire on every other and regular coated wire on the others. In retrospect we probably should have did one more electric though. But once it was run through everything, yup we were good. Keeps the horses in and most critters out. Note: the plain white coated wire is not hot, the one with the black stripe IS HOT! You learn that quick when ya grab it.

7. RENT the auger that attaches to the back of a small tractor! (Like this one from Rural King) Wait...what!!! Why didn't someone tell us to do that?! It would have saved a lot of arguing, but, then we wouldn't have all of these wonderful memories. Plus, we didn't really have a tractor to attach it to at the time, so this two man auger from Tractor Supply was better than the manual post hole digger. UGH! That's work! (Also, invest in the larger bit for the auger)

8. DRINK plenty of water! Putting in pasture fencing is a lot of work! Again, I go back to number 1, maybe not a great thing to do in August.

9. MAKE SURE the t-post driver you are using is made properly! We had been using a friends but decided to buy our own. After a few mishaps like my husband nailing the e'hem family jewels and then clocking himself in the head! We figured something had to be wrong. I mean, he's not that coordinated when dancing but the man knows how to handle a t-post driver let me tell ya!

After I butterflied his head back together and got this awesome stuff called Wound Seal powder, which I highly recommended having on hand! We buy it in bulk around here! We took a good look at it and realized the problem. Yup, we got a wonky one that had the handles upside down. Didn't think that was possible, but it is! It could have been much worse. But now he has a cool scar to show off.

WARNING...this one is kind of gross!

10. PLAN AHEAD! Think about a month, a year, five years down the road. Don't drive in temporary fencing for a pasture only to pull them up and start on the permanent pasture just a little while later.  Then again, if you are like me, patience is not one of my strong points. My husband and I are both wired that way.

And think about the placement of your fencing. Where are you going to put your barn, your chicken coop, any other structures? In our case...yup you can now see where some of the fence posts came from. This big area was part of our pasture. It's OK, we started on the other pastures while they worked on the barn. (I'll post about the barn construction later)

Like I said, we learned a lot, and we are STILL learning. But, for first time country folk, and for the first pasture we put in...we held our own! Kudos to my husband, I will admit now that, while I do pretty darn good, he worked way harder than I did! Love ya baby!

This is us getting "our" first load of hay, that we picked ourselves out of the hay field. Oh Yea!
BTW this can save you an average of .50 a bale, that's worth it when your feeding multiple horses!

Well, that's about it for now. As we changes things around or if I think of anything else, I will post an update.

Thanks for coming back!