Clearing and Setting Poles For The Side 1250 Feet of Fencing

Fencing this property was a major undertaking for Mike and I.  Our property is 350 feet wide by 1250 feet deep.  Thankfully our one neighbor side is already fenced.  We started clearing the other long side awhile ago.  Since it has been hot here, Mike and I gout for a morning round and then take a break.  So on to some clearing and installing poles.

We are putting in wood poles and braces every 100 feet.  T-posts will be every 10 feet to hold the fence.  Mike packing a new pole next to a neighbor's pole but on our property.

Pounding the pole in with the tractor for a little help:

All poles are in for the first 100 feet.  Only 1150 more feet to go, lol.  Using a string line to keep it all straight.

String is attached to the wood poles.  We use a tape ruler to measure every 10 feet, mark the ground with spray paint to spray paint, and then pound in the t posts on those marks and against the string.

Just some of the jungle we had to deal with.  The first thing we had to do was find all of the survey markers.  Once we found those we added our own metal pole with an orange flag.  Now we know where the fence needs to go.

The clearing was a huge job.  For the smaller trees Mike would raise to tractor bucket and plow through as much as he could just to knock them down.  For the larger trees he had to use the chainsaw to cut the trees down.  Meanwhile I had to clear all of the trees and debris off of our "road" which is where the fence will go.

For Mike to see where we needed to go I would walk in the woods and find the next survey marker and hold a pole with a flag attached so he could start plowing.  There we some places that were so thick that Mike couldn't even see my 6 foot pole and flag held up in the air above my head.


Mike cutting one of the many many trees.

And then we came to the monster tree.  This tree is located in our "hole and wet area".  It came down sometime before we bought the property and is on both our property and the land next to us.  It is a monster tree and of course it is right where we need to fence.  We had no way of moving it until we came up with an idea:)  This is the tree:

And:

First Mike cut the tree trunk and then we used a winch to move it.

Ready to start moving it.

Mike using the winch.  We took turns moving this tree out of our way.

We moved the tree about 20 feet.  It was a job but of course Mike and I got 'r done:)

This is our front corner.  Mike cutting trees while I clear.

Almost cleared wide enough for a small "tractor" road and ready for fencing.

Back to where we moved the tree with the winch.  It is a wet area and when it rains we cannot drive/walk through.  For now we used a lot of the logs/trees Mike cut down to make a temporary bridge.

It's a mess but Mike will be able to drive the tractor through.

Bringing the auger in to drill the wood pole holes.  Of course we need to drill 3 holes in this muck for a pole and two braces.

The string line for us to follow.

Holes dug and ready for poles.

I won't bore you with more, lol.  It took us a long time to clear the border of the property and get ready for the fencing.  This is just the prep work for the wire fence to be installed.  Either way Mike and I saved a ton of money by doing it ourselves.  As most of you know Mike and I try to do most jobs ourselves.  There is very little that Mike can't do:)


Next up....more new goats and working on the house/barn building.