Family Fencing Project

♫ Here’s a story, of a family fencing project, with four people and a bunch of goats.♫

Michael has a dry erase board on which he writes his “to do” list. It is a very long list. Some are larger projects that we need to save money to complete, but they are there, on the list. We usually discuss what we each need to get done on the weekend and help each other where needed. Saturday was a family fencing day.

You may remember the post of Michael and I putting up fencing around the pond a year ago. Well, it has taken a full year but now we were able to do the largest part of fencing in the upper pasture.

Some fencing jobs are a little more tricky. Pretty much has to do with the terrain.

Michael had already built the H-braces that were needed. He and the boys had already sunk the t-posts. This day was about getting the actual fencing in place.

As you can see in the above picture, the role of fencing is rather large. We needed about 200 feet of fencing for the job.

You will notice in the pictures that our goats like to be where we are. It’s Michael. They have a crush on him. They will follow him anywhere.

Halle seemed to understand that the fencing was going to limit her roaming.

The other goats were mostly interested in the yummies on the hillside.

Once the fencing is all laid out, you need to secure it at the beginning post. It is very important that the fence be secured plumb with the post. If it isn’t plumb, the whole fence will be crooked.

Once the end is secure and the fencing is set upright, it is time to stretch the fencing. You want it to be nice and tight. Very important because goats love to rub against the fencing.

Break time.

The terrain didn’t provide a great place to attach the come-along. It needs to be something firmly secure and in a straight line from the fence. Michael didn’t have the best trees to choose from but he decided to attach the come-along to a tree that would give us a straight line.

That 2×4 was as far as the boys got in building a fort in those trees. You see, the tree that Michael picked was pretty much dead. We were hoping that it would stay put long enough for the fencing to be stretched.

Carefully, he began the stretching process.

The goats heard the CRACK first and ran away.

The 2×4 fell first then the tree. We decided it was best that we brought the tree down in a “controlled” situation rather than it coming down in a storm. That is our story and we are sticking to it. Of course, when the tree fell, so did the tension in the fence. Have to stretch all over again.

Now our only option was to put the come-along on a tree that wasn’t exactly a straight line from the fence. It worked and the fence is up. My favorite part (not) is attaching the fence to the t-posts. Eleven t-posts, each needing three clips. I hate it! Nicholas ended up figuring it out and was a big help.

After that we needed to put the cattle panels back up for the girls outside pen.

It was a great time as a family and with the goats making the pasture more safe for our animals.

The chickens even enjoyed the time.

One more thing crossed off the “to-do” list.

Have a great day,
Karen