1982vett":3vtbun6d said:
Hey greybeard...did you pound all those in with a driver?
Yes, and if you look at the below pic, you will see a horizontal line left to right in the middle of the pic. That's a 5 wire I built in 2007 or 2008 the same way--about 2700' long. I drove em all in by hand too. I hired a guy to hold some tee posts while I drove them down with my backhoe bucket one time on another fence. All that pounding squeezed the front rubber bushing out of the motor mount right before we got thru and the fan got in the radiator. An expensive lesson--I don't do that anymore.
It was all woods back then I just cleared out a lane wide enough to walk thru and sight my rifle down to where I wanted the other end of the fence. Planted 1 telephone pole 5' deep on each end. It was a pain. I pulled and stretched one strand to get a straight line, then put in gate and H posts along the way, then started pulling the other 4 strands. Some places I could barely fit between trees. Had the roll of wire on a trailer on the far left of the pic, and grabbed the end and started walking--unspooling it as I pulled. Get to one of those waterways, I tied a line and brick to the end of the wire, and tossed it across, then walked down or up the canal till I came to a crossing and went over and back up to my brick and started pulling again. Too wide and too deep to jump or wade. Did that 3x5 times--once for each canal and strand. Sometimes get about 100 ft and the wire would hang on the roll and I would have to walk all the way back to the end and sort it out.
Once, I was over 1 roll length down the length of the property, with every barb hanging and snagging a root or vine and it felt funny--harder to pull, but it was still coming. Finally wore me down and I walked back and found the roll had come off the shaft and I was dragging the whole roll along the ground. I had done drug the blasted thing about 60 feet. :devil2: Wasn't enough room to get a tractor or 4 wheeler down thru there either. Took me 3 pulls with comalong and goldenrod stretcher to get each strand tight and straight.
One of those canals I had to throw the line over and drag wire over:
Another fenceline I share with my out-of-state brother. He didn't want to share the cost, so I only ran 4 wires. He did spend about 3 hours, grudgingly helping me stetch wire and pound posts in. He's lazy as hades as often as he can be. Can't believe we're twins sometimes.
Here is about 1/3 of that same 2700' long fence today. It was solid woods when I built it, but it's still straight as an arrow.
Highgrit, the pic above is one of my perimeter fences. The one along the river doesn't look that good, as it is grown up some and has been thru some flooding the last 5 years. 4 strands most places, but the same kind of corners. Front fence along the highway I haven't touched much since I and my brother built it in 1966. Grown up quite a bit from the outside on govt property. I ain't allowed to cut anything outside my fences on govt land--they want that "pristine" look. Not weeds, not vines, not trees--nothing.
Yes, a calf can sure get under one of em, but not easy--the strands are tight as a fiddle string. I can't, by myself put up woven wire and my kids are all grown and spread to the 4 corners of the country for now. I'm just an old man trying to get by with what little I know.
Anyway--you beginners that might read this--you sure ya wanna have some of this kind of life?
Better have some grit or a lot of $$--or at least youth on your side. I'll be 63 in a couple weeks and lots of folks here go thru a LOT more than I have--just to have a few cows.
