TheFarmOfDreams- a long awaited adventure

[Baymule]

I’m real happy with 103F degrees in summer! That’s why we have air conditioning. I can’t even imagine snow like that!

 

[Ridgetop]

Hopefully the lumber company paid you for the trees. That $$$ can do some stump removal and fencing.

 

[Bruce]

that I am further south so don't get snows like that very often

It isn't just latitude, being at the east end of Lake Ontario Watertown gets slammed regularly. Just not THIS bad! The mother of a friend at work (back when I worked) lives (lived?) in Watertown. I heard about her snow dumps often. He had a picture one winter of snow up to the bottom of the second story windows.

I live 150 miles northeast of @Thefarmofdreams. We never get snow like that even though we are on the east side of Lake Champlain. It is a lot smaller and doesn't have the "fetch" of the Great Lakes. DW's brother and sister-in-law live on the MA/NH border 150 miles SSE of us. They get more snow than we do, annoys DW .

 

[farmerjan]

I realize that those lake effect snows are really something. My brother has his fishing boat up on Lake Ontario (when it is in the water).... and he gets some pretty good snows up there...

We get our share of snow some years here in Va... about 10-12 years ago, it started snowing the weekend before Christmas eve, and we never saw bare ground until late March but that is unusual. Most were 12-18 inch snows...
A year or 2 after I moved here, maybe 1982, we had 2 back to back snowstorms of a total of over 35 inches in 3 days... didn't plow the back road I lived on for 4 days... I rode my horse from the fence behind the house out to the pole barn that was about .3 mile out back of the property... she loved the snow, I was alot younger and could ride her bareback, and she would come to a whistle.... luckily I had hay in the loft area, and grain out there in a "stall" they couldn't get into... I wasn't milking but had some beef cows... and they were able to use part of the pole barn for shelter.... and for 2 days I rode her back and forth and made a path so I could walk it if I had to. That was when all the joints were in MUCH better shape...

I was talking about being this much further south than when I was in CT. 600 miles....although we had some years of more snow than they did where my parents and sister were in SE Conn. And they have had more snow in NC in the mountains than we have had here, several times in the last few years... bands that just go straight east rather than work their way up to the northeast... and the cold settling down there rather than covering the area to the north where we are...... It has been weird...

No thank you to the snow they have in the parts of NY that get the lake effect snow... I am too old to want to deal with it anymore....

 

[farmerjan]

How much total snow did you wind up with???

 

[Thefarmofdreams]

Hopefully the lumber company paid you for the trees. That $$$ can do some stump removal and fencing.

We are! We will be getting a tractor first, and hopefully some of the fencing too!


We got 70ish inches. It was INSANE. My 5' fence was completely buried... And pretty much everything else. My brother and husband shovelled all afternoon Friday, all day Saturday and bro didn't get to leave for home till 7pm!! Hubby shoveled all day Sunday, and Monday. and unburied my van finally on Tuesday. (I was sick with a nasty virus, didn't do anything after I came in Friday. Too dizzy. Terrible timing) Tomorrow we have to dig around the buildings so we can clear roofs. And widen our barn paths, and redo a section that got dumped on by a roof so we can empty manure sleds. If I can get paths wide enough, I can get the new 3wheeler bro brought me out to pull sleds instead of dragging them myself. so basically, no where near done with this crazy freaking snow storm. Even long term locals are freaking out. We usually get 40" a year. We got 70 in barely over 24hrs. Smh.

Oh and it all settled HARD and has melted a bit in top (lots of high 30s this week. Sob.) And the heavy, settling snow tore down my fence as it settled. So no more turn out for horses this year. Sigh. I JUST put that fence up... Not even 6 months ago.

So now I need to research snow proof fence??? Will this kind of snow also rip apart a no climb fence? What kind of electric wouldn't just get stripped away??

On the plus side, the loggers continue to fly thru our woods, the pasture is pretty much empty!

thats my minivan under there...

Note more than 5ft of t post buried.

I'm sitting on our 4ft gate bc it's so buried that I couldn't open it. Brother snowblowing the path (for the 3rd time)



My poor destroyed fence. So much work.

My pasture! You can see they left me all the small hardwoods to pick thru and thin by hand for silvopasture. And an acre for living barn (I ended up asking them to cut it down to 1/2 acres). It's going to be so nice. Can't wait.

The kids got to see the feller buncher up close while I met with the Forester.

 

[farmerjan]

HOLY COW !!!!!! That is unbelievable.... The best thing is that you are about 30-40 years younger than me and can deal with it.... Except that a tractor with a bucket loader would have been nice to at least get some scooped out of the way.
BLESS YOU and your family for dealing with it.

Woven wire, like the no climb, should not suffer from alot of problems with the snow.... IF it is put up right and stretched tight. I would be a little more inclined to use sheep and goat wire, 4x4" holes so that snow will blow through it better. The no climb is 2x4" and will be a bit more of a barrier.... but I think that you need to talk to whomever you are going to have build it. It has to be stretched tight and right, with proper brace posts, or it will not hold up. I understand that that is twice what the area normally would get.... but now you know what you need to be prepared for... Do not skimp on putting it up.... or you will be doing it over again.....

Electric is not made for snow. Most people here take theirs down for winter, and we normally get snow in 6-10 inch spurts... a couple a year if that normally lately. You will not be able to use the electric in most winters... especially since you are in a snow belt area from the lake effect. Okay for summer/cross fencing for grazing etc... it will stretch it out and break it... unless you go to high tensile wire... it will stretch and "bounce back".... it stretches if something weighs it down...supposed to bounce back.

 

[farmerjan]

If possible, you need a high tensile woven wire of some sort... it will give a bit better with the kind of winters you are dealing with. There is both smooth hi-tensile that you HAVE to electrify... like barbed wire without the barbs... and a high tensile type of field fencing/woven wire that has a little more give to it. With all the snow there, I would also err on the side of more posts than fewer... but if there is a professional fence builder there, you need to make sure that they build it for winters like that. Most high tensile woven wire fencing here calls for posts every 12-16-20 feet... because of it stretching so good... I would not want the posts there to be more than 10-12 feet apart... almost like the normal spacing here (we do 8 ft so we can run a board around the top if we need to).... sometimes we have to use a T-post inbetween wood posts... and some places we do 1 wood post to every 2-4 T-posts...but they are still spaced 8 ft unless we are having to deal with some bad rocky ledge...

 

[Thefarmofdreams]

We are definitely planning to fence it ourselves budget is very limited. I don't think the 4x4 would be safe for the horses. So I think we have to stick with the smaller holes.

I knew we couldn't use the electric once snow got deep, but I didn't expect to have to remove the wires every winter . Ugh.

Why do you say more wood posts and less t posts? Do they hold better? I love the look of the fences with boards across the top but the thought of the cost for 8 acres is terrifying.

Definitely a tractor next year. We can't do this again.

 

[Baymule]

Sitting down here in east Texas where in February 2021 we had a freak winter storm, 3 ice storms, 10” of snow and -6F temperatures. You might laugh, but our normal snow is 2”-3” and THAT shuts everything down because we have no equipment to deal with it. It usually melts and is gone by day 3. Our freak winter storm lasted nearly 2 weeks and stopped the whole state. Nothing near like what you just had, but I get the idea.

I’m so sorry for the fence damage, I know the hard work that went into that. Here we put in a stout wood post as every 10th post. We call them a “dead man” post. It’s an 8’ post, 3’ in the ground. It’s 6” diameter or bigger, not smaller. For you, I’d suggest a dead man post every 4th post and posts spaced no more than 8’ apart, maybe 6’ spacing.

We fenced our 8 acres in Lindale in 2”x4” non climb wire. It’s hard to get a good tight stretch on. We used our 23 horse Kubota tractor, with front end loader, and a come along. We actually got the wire so tight that it dragged the tractor. And THAT turned out to not be tight enough. It’s hard wire to work with.

Time has passed. I’m widowed, sold the farm, moved to Trinity county, bought 25 acres with a 22 year old double wide. This place features run down barbed wire fences covered with 40 years of overgrown brush, trees, briar vines, an unholy mess. I no sooner got moved in with my sheep and dogs, that I went and had knee replacement surgery, 2 months ago now. I’m chomping at the bit to get started!

I will not use the 2”x4” wire again. Sure, the horses couldn’t stick a hoof in it, but they could paw at it and still managed to tear up sections of it. I’ll be using the 4”x4” wire. I’ll get horses again some day and I think the 4” wire will pose them no harm. They still can’t stick their stupid foot through a 4” hole.

It is economically advantageous to use the 4”c4” wire over the non climb. Non climb comes in 100’ and 200’ rolls. The 4” sheep and goat wire comes in 330’ rolls. I get more bank for my buck. $$$

I made a fence journal when we built our non climb fence. I’m going to make a fence journal for my new place. I suggest you do the same, it is educational for others, it puts all your fencing efforts in one place and it’s fun to “read back” and see what you did right/wrong. Take lots of pictures!

I had help putting up 2 long stretches of the 4”x4” wire. @farmerjan advised putting a H brace and stretching on each end, but I think a double H brace would be better. I know one thing, I WON’T use non climb again!

I’m so sorry the snow storm did so much damage. Maybe it’s a good thing, it’s has shown the weak points and now you know that you need to make your fences stronger. You may never see a snow like this again in your lifetime but you sure will be prepared if you do.