Bob Wahr'

I am beginning to get some opportunities to take on the agrarian life. It's been my hearts desire for some time now. Unfortunately, I haven't always been focused on it. Lately, I have been really working towards that goal. I helped some friends slaughter and process their chickens. I have been raising chickens for eggs, and two of the three are laying now. Today I was blessed with being able to stretch out a part of a barbed wire fence.

In preparing for the day, I decided I should read something on the subject. I've strung fences before, but I've never been any good at it. I just haven't had the experiences necessary to understand the delicacies of the subject.

I read the article on Mother Earth News. I felt it was a good article. There are a lot of little tips that really set it apart.

So armed with my new information, I went to put up a fence. Russ had done this for himself before, but was not real experienced either. The big difference between our fence and the one in the article was the use of T posts. These were used for the run, and wooden posts for the gate and corner posts. The corner was done with a horizontal brace and two other posts.

So we started at the bottom from the wrong direction. We pulled from the corner post to the gate post. We pulled from the opposite side of the gate. Russ remembered that as being the best way to go. It turns out it was not the best, but it was an Edison moment. We discovered another way not to stretch the fence. We would correct it later.

I suggested we pull from the corner post. Russ agreed. This worked out great. We put some tension on the line. It was very tight. We were proud. So we did another line in the middle. When we got finished with that line, we realized the top strand was sagging. We loosened up the staples and stretched it again. We managed to get it a good inch and a half tighter. We moved to the lower middle line. Once I got the stretcher nice and taught, Russ noticed the top was sagging. I loosened the stretcher to discover it was sagging. Then I thought about it. When to applied tension to the top wire, it only tightened up to the first barb that was on a post. Ah ha. Another moment of learning. We decided to go ahead with the middle lines. We decided tension should be judged based on the higher middle strand. This worked out great. We knocked out the lower middle and the middle wires. We then reworked the top and lower wires. In the end, I think we will do better when we do the rest. We know have a system.