December 22, 2022
a teenager who lives down the road had an arragement with the previous owner at my property: in exchange for weed-whacking the fences, he got to fish for free in the pond.
today i hired this teenager with some upgraded expectations: fish whenever you want, and get paid an hourly rate for the work.
our first project together was fixing 11 sections of fence on our southwestern-most pasture so that i can start rotating the animals to graze it.
he brought a friend along for Day 1, and here's their work.
today i hired this teenager with some upgraded expectations: fish whenever you want, and get paid an hourly rate for the work.
our first project together was fixing 11 sections of fence on our southwestern-most pasture so that i can start rotating the animals to graze it.
he brought a friend along for Day 1, and here's their work.
kicking off the fence
we found some extra fencing on the property and nailed it in using 1.5" fence staples.
stretching each section
i'm not sure how the professionals run fencing to make it perfectly straight and tight, but the 3 of us used our human-level strength to pull the fencing as tight as possible between posts.
on each post we used 3 T-Post clips (silver thing, $8.99). with a neat tool called a clip bender ($17.99) these get wrapped tightly around the fence wire and post, every 6 feet or so.
after finishing all 11 missing fence sections, my new ranch hands added a single string of barbed wire along the very top. this discourages animals from trying to climb over, without making the entire fence sharp. i also found the barbed wire on the property, so no expense there.
after finishing all 11 missing fence sections, my new ranch hands added a single string of barbed wire along the very top. this discourages animals from trying to climb over, without making the entire fence sharp. i also found the barbed wire on the property, so no expense there.
finished product
as i mentioned, we couldn't do a perfect job. the fences are a little wobbly looking, but secure.
we found a ton of free barbed wire, but it's sharp as hell and thus kinda dangerous to lug around. so i bought a nifty tool called Easy Fence ($17.99) that makes it faster + safer to carry by the spool.
note the convex curves in the middle of each section. i mostly attribute this to our spare fencing being rolled up for several months.
in the middle of the project they ran out of found fencing. i drove us to Tractor Supply where we bought 100 feet more at $2.59 per foot, and used about half of it.
with a successful test project in the books, i'll be leaning on these kids more for future projects, beginning with animal feedings while i'm traveling this Christmas.
welcoming the Kulp Estates founding staff!
Spent: $283.47 |
Time: 3.0 hours