Well, good morning again. We're out here at our little piece of land, and I did finally get my
tractor running. It ended up being a bad coil. I changed the condenser, and it didn't make any
difference. I went through the carburetor. So bottom line, after kind of checking all
my voltages and my wires, and all that, it ended up being a faulty coil. So I do have it running.
I did move cows into this little area here where I have some buildings. I figure I might as well
let them mow the grass as me. So since I got my tractor running, I figured the goal today is to
go down and build the brace next to the cattle guard, where the road goes through.
So, I'll get this fired up and go grab some ties, and I've got to put the post hole auger on.
Yeah, year to year I've got to remember how this goes together again.
I've used this hole quite a bit so I think I'm going to move up a hole. I may have to take this
to the shop and reinforce that, or build it back up. So, I have to lift this up and put the auger on.
When I store it, I put these little prop legs underneath it to keep it from tipping over.
There's a few odds and ends; a shovel, tamping bar, I run a level,
so I'm sure my posts are square, and a tape measure.
And almost forgot, I need a post hole digger,
jug of water, and I usually have a chain out here, but I guess I left it in my pickup so I
got some scrap pieces of rope, to use the loader to pick up these ties and put them in the hole.
So, I'm going to come out from the tie on the cattle guard,
line up with the fence that I have online across the road, and come out 20 feet.
I've got a couple of flags here and I'm gonna come from that.
I generally will have a, somewhere around an eight foot brace, that goes between the two posts.
So I actually like to do it just a fuzz shy of that.
If I dig my hole at eight feet, my tie is going to be three four inches in on both sides, so I should
end up with about a seven and a half foot space between my two posts, so I can take an eight foot
post, and trim it to where it fits correctly between the two.
So I think this is about where I want to be. I've got my flag off to the side right here.
I'm kind of pretty straight up and down.
Straighten up my auger up a bit.
Now we'll come back and stick one just right beside this flag here.
Well, the auger's done the hard work.
Get all the loose dirt that didn't come out with the auger.
Generally end up with about a three foot hole.
Well this worked on the first one. I forgot my chain.
I didn't know if this rope would work or not, but it seems to. We'll get the second one put in.
This is where you need that second pair of hands huh?
That'll work.
Well, I get this kind of squared up with the fence line.
Make sure we're plumb. You'll be in there pretty close. I'll start tamping from the
bottom up. The bottom is pretty important to get it tamped tight before you put a lot of
fill in. I usually come up about two inches at a time, tamping each section at a time.
When I tamp around the bottom, that'll still allow me to do a little bit of adjusting to
where I get it square. By the time I'm four to six inches up, she's pretty well set in place.
Well there's several factors that kind of work into whether a brace is solid or not,
and this is one of them, that the bottom is tamped well.
Not too much, too fast.
Check my plumb.
And there about there.
Pretty close right there.
Check one more time.
We're good that way.
It'll stand up about right there.
Firm that up on the face here.
Nice thing about building fence in the springtime,
especially when you're setting corner braces, moisture in the ground is a big difference.
We're good there.
So just a couple inches at a time.
Yeah, this is one of those personal difference deals.
I like this tamping bar because it has a fairly small head;
inch, inch and a quarter. Some of these tamping bars. spud bars, it's called different things, will have
a big round button on the end. And it seems like maybe it would tamp faster, but it's tough to get
into small places, along the side of these ties. I drilled a 12 inch hole, but this tie, kitty-corner,
is probably 12 inches, or close to it, so it's not a lot of room down along the side. And the smaller
the head, the more compact it will actually pack that soil around the base of these posts.
It started out at 50 degrees this morning. When I came out
cows are out. They'd push down a little section of the fence. I put them in. I didn't
get quite as early a start as I had figured. We're supposed to be about 85 or so today.
We're warming up. We've got to be, just guessing, the 70s. Pretty calm, pretty nice day.
Yeah, I think that'll work.
I'll go back to the place, and I'll get a cross brace, some wire, finish this out.
Well for me, when I'm out hanging wire, my top strand is usually right at my hip bone,
which is about 44 inches.
Right in there pretty close,
43"-44". So I'm gonna come up a couple inches higher than that, where I would put the bottom of my brace.
And I've got a couple saddles that I make out of two by fours that I use. In this case I'm going to
use round poles that are four inch, so I'm going to set this in at about that 46 inch area.
This is fairly short pieces of wood and I'm going to kind of be out here a little close to the end.
I'm just gonna pre-drill these.
So if I just measure from the ground up on both, the top rail is going to actually kind of follow
the contour of the ground. Some people like to put a level on them, and make them all level,
and that's what my neighbor likes to do, but I like it to follow the slope of the land.
And you'll see a lot of places where they'll take a saw, or an ax, and they'll notch a spot in here,
but a lot of these old ties are oak and maple, and they're really hard. We've got some fir ones out here,
but this just seems like it's a lot easier for me. It still gives a good solid shelf.
I'm just gonna pin this in place.
And it requires no staples at all. It'll sit right in this notch, and I'll put another one over here.
That wire will come right across here. And we'll do this same type of a notch on the base of that post.
So the push will come this direction, and the pull will go down to that base of that post,
and that triangle is what gives strength to a brace.
Well me personally, I like a smooth wire for this. You can use a number nine fencing wire,
but I usually keep a roll of barbless around.
I like to make the top wire and gates out of this, and I like to use using it for this brace wire.
I'll just hold it in place there.
It seems kind of loose, but here's where we'll tension it up.
Make sure all my corners are pretty well set.
Yeah, sometimes I'll just stick a nail here.
Not through the board.
It's just kind of a stop, so something rubbing on it doesn't knock it loose.
That's kind of my simple way of putting in an end brace, or a corner brace.
It's been a pretty pleasant day.
The wind started out of the south this morning, and it has shifted around to where it's kind
of coming out of the north now.
Appreciate you following along. It's kind of fun to be out here.