Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[Bruce]

Gotta love all that rock eh Mike!

I can't even imagine knocking out fencing 4.5 acres "in short order" given how long it took me to fence just 1 acre!

 

[Mike CHS]

Bruce we are fencing in our good bottom land right now so the auger did the heavy lifting. Jay and I set all of the wood corner/gate and line posts. I sent him home at 11:15 since what's left for today is hot wire fittings and laying out the T-posts for tomorrows run. We got all of the T-posts driven on the shorter 250 run and I'll lay out the longer 400' run this afternoon and lay out the T-posts for driving in tomorrow. I start early and get all of the material out and the time consuming stuff done before the help arrives. All of what we did today was not quite two hours of their labor for Jay who got here around 9:00 and I started moving material at 6:00.

Teresa had the other helper do weed eating for an hour or so then help me and Jay do T-posts.

We still have a couple of posts to drill for that we couldn't get to today because the sheep are in electric netting in that section. I'll move that tonight so we can get all the posts in the ground tomorrow. We are trying to get what we want to do by noon so we aren't out in the heat any more than we have to.

 

[Bruce]

Ask the sheep to dig the holes in their area for you

I can see where it would go a lot faster with an auger to dig the holes. And a tractor to haul the T-posts out. Is this an all hotwire area, no stretching?

 

[Mike CHS]

This fence is the Gaucho high tensile woven wire with hot and ground above that. The plan for this one is use netting this season to divide it in half and take some of the pressure off their main one. The perimeter for this one is inside the property line by20-40 feet depending on how the treeline curves around the railroad tunnel. I can use netting to let the sheep eat that on occasion but there is such heavy deer traffic along that edge which is why I'm building fence so far inside the property line.

 

[Mike CHS]

We showered around 4:00 and went into town to get some parts for the fence and enough posts to finish the posts tomorrow. I needed to set two of those in concrete so I put on my sweaty clothes and went out and moved the electric netting so I could drill the last of the wood posts and went ahead and set them. This day was hot but productive.

 

[Baymule]

Progress is being made. This is the time of year that it takes a little longer. Summer heat turns us into reverse bears-we hibernate after 12 noon!

 

[CntryBoy777]

Glad ya had the energy to get back out there. I wimped out today and just tended to the animals. I figured that my clothes were wet enough yesterday to count for a few days anyway.....

 

[Mike CHS]

I was ready to quit earlier but I want to try to get the rest of the T-posts in and most of the woven wire stretched tomorrow. Its may be wishful thinking but I would like to have the fence up by the end of the day Thursday. We are going to Florida for a quick visit and I would like for the sheep to have enough fresh grass to keep them happy.

I'm not real optimistic but if we get this section done this week it will be in a fraction of the time the other fences took.

 

[Baymule]

I'm not real optimistic but if we get this section done this week it will be in a fraction of the time the other fences took.

You've had enough practice to finally get good at what you're doing!

 

[goatgurl]

poor lance, his evil eye just doesn't work on ringo who just grazes there to drive lance nuts. border collies are just so intense.
i'm glad you are the one working in this heat building fence. i'm also glad you have some help. drink lots of water.