Don't fence me in!

Another HUGE project was replacing some fence in the east pasture. The existing fence was leaning badly.

It was leaning so much that we were afraid the horses would try to step over or through it and get hurt. We ran some temporary hot rope fencing and T-posts to make it safe to turn the boys out into the pasture.

With the help of our dear friend Richard, we set about replacing this whole 300 foot section of fence. Eventually, we'll replace all of our perimeter fencing. We'll do it one section at a time, because of the time and expense of installing a wood fence like we're doing. 

Here they are pulling up the old posts. The Bobcat sure makes the task easy! That's G.W. in the driver's seat and Richard on the ground. 

Wrap the chain around the post and pull!

Easy peasy...if you have a Bobcat and a couple of guys who know what they're doing.

Here is some video of the process.  

Richard setting the new posts...

We're using 6" x 6" eight foot long treated lumber posts. They're sunk three feet into the ground. Solid!

For the horizontals, we're using a unique material...lumber reclaimed from wooden snow fence. The good folks at Repurposed Materials in Denver carry it. By using this reclaimed material, we're keeping it out of a landfill and saving ourselves quite a bit of money over the cost of new lumber. It's a win-win situation!

I've mentioned Repurposed Materials here before. It's where I got the billboards I'm using to cover my hay bales. 

The wood pieces are eight feet long and probably an inch and a half to two inches thick. It's heavy, solid and perfect for our fence.

You can see the holes from the bolts from the snow fence as well as the sun bleaching on the wood. Neither of those things bother us. The wood has a nice gray weathered color which fits in perfectly with our old homestead outbuildings.

In this up-close photo, you can see both the holes and the bleaching. 

Here's a series of photos showing the progress G.W. and Richard made over two and a half days.

 Yes, I had a small part in this, too. My job was to check the reclaimed wood for any stray nails and then measure and sort the boards by length. I had several categories..."8 feet", "between 8' and 8' 1/4"", "between 8' 1/4" and 8' 1/2"" and "unusable for the fence". 

The wood we couldn't use for the fence because it might have had a split or been too short will be saved for other uses, like repairing the chicken coop. 

 And, four days after they started, here's the finished fence! 

They've even built in a section for a gate. (We'll do the gate at some point in the future). This fence line is on the border of our property and the public open space. It'll be nice to have a gate for easy access to ride the horses out into the open space, but we need to have a strong and lockable gate to keep people out.

The section on the left is for the gate.

We're very happy with the finished fence. The weathered boards make it look like it's been there for a long time. At five feet tall, it's safe for the horses and is very solid!  

It was extremely hard, dirty work! G.W. and Richard did an outstanding job.  And just think, guys, there's only about 2,000 feet more to replace!