The Character of a Good Fence
A little nostalgia accompanies some activities. Holidays and anniversaries come with built-in sentiment however I like my trips down memory lane to be a surprise. Sometimes the effort of work is as strong a trigger of good memories as smell or taste.
I spent a recent Saturday putting up cattle fence. Every spring used to be fencing season as I repaired fences. Several years ago we installed high-tensile wire which eliminated most maintenance. I haven’t built new fence in more than a decade. We decided to plant trees in a small section of pasture so I began removing wire and posts and building a new perimeter fence. That’s where the memories start.
My brother Steve was the first person I helped build a fence. We used sheep netting on the lower part of the fence with electric wire on top. We’d stretch the sheep netting by sandwiching the netting in between 2x4s which we bolted together. We then connected one end of a come-along to the wooden boards and the other to the old Farmall M tractor. Steve would ratchet the netting tight and then connect it to the end post. This was pretty intense work, made only more difficult as the fence was second-hand and a little rusty.
It’s like most things in life, by the time you learn how to properly complete a task, the task is almost complete. The bulk of my fencing was done on foot with old tools and a five gallon pail. I remember carrying as many t-posts as I could on one shoulder, then carrying a pail that contained all my tools and insulators. I’m not complaining, those were some of the best times as I was just starting out and was so thrilled to finally have my own farm. By the time I had proper tools and an ATV, most of the hard work was done.
Most of that early fence work was just repair of what was already on-site. I began to replace sections of fence, one at a time, until I had removed all the old barb-wire fence and replaced it with electric wire. I remember how proud I was at the purchase of my first low-impedance fencer. Low-impedance fencers can increase their output when they sense grass or weeds hanging on the wire. I spent much of the late 90s and early 2000s reading about New Zealand fence, types of rotational grazing and fencers. A conversation with me during these times would have been quite one-dimensional.
The end post is a genre of fencing unto itself. End posts are the longevity of a fence. If they are properly made, you will have few problems. I remember a time when I kept an eye open for a utility crew replacing a power pole. Getting a complete pole was like found money.
The creosote base always made a good corner post. Those end posts were a good lesson in building character. Like character, they took a lot of effort to build correctly and were not glamorous. Like character, they were the anchor for the project and a major foundation to something you could depend on. Character, like a good end post, prevents a lot of problems if properly made.
Character and fence are important to me, and I suspect I am not alone in giving them priority. The problem is, neither of them is on display as often as they once were.
