Fencing Trip

No… sorry… not fencing like sword-fighting. Fencing like barbed wire fencing.

The snow is gone from the continental divide and I flew into Bendit last weekend to check the road and area. It all looked clear and dry so this past weekend, I loaded a whole mess of fence posts, a couple big 3″ square steel gate posts, and some bags of concrete on the trailer and off I went.

In fact, one of my sons agreed to come with to help and keep me company. So, it was a really great day trip!

We stopped at one of the El Malpais lava flow overlooks.

Yep… that’s lava for miles and miles.  VERY rugged, very rough on feet, shoes, or anything else that touches it!!

We got to Bendit fairly early and in classic style, got a campfire burning and sat and enjoyed it for a while.

Don’t think I ever mentioned it but I had a flat front tire on the tractor a couple months ago. Whilst doing some maintenance with it, I suddenly had a flat but there was no obvious damage. I talked about removing it in the snow here. It was repaired recently and there was no puncture. Apparently, it was just low on pressure and I popped it off the bead. So, that was hauled back out on this trip. We got it mounted back on the tractor and once again had a labor force or a force of labor?!!?

One of the goals for the trip was to test the ability to drive a barbed wire fence post (a steel T-post) with the tractor bucket. I’ve seen this on YouTube and wondered how well it would work in my lava rock infested soil. I brought along a 4′ long piece of 2″ tubing that had a steel cap on one end. It looks a bit like a typical fence post driver but is much longer and doesn’t have the handles.  The reason for this is that I don’t think I have it in my anymore to set 350 fence posts with a hand driver. Actually… I’m not sure that has ever been in me…

We found a nice spot to put a fence post, slipped the ‘driver’ over the post, and lowered the bucket. The post slid right into the ground like there was nothing to it.

I was shocked!!

It worked so well, we decided to try it again, and again, and again.  I fully expected to hit rocks at some point and bend a post. It never happened.  That said, there are a couple of areas that are VERY rocky – exposed rocks – that we did not get to.  I’m not yet sure what to do with those areas – several options though.

They are a little hard to see but there is a line of brand new fencing there!

We put in forty or fifty fence posts in very short order. It is a two person job – one person operating the tractor, the other person holding the post/driver – but that’s ok since it takes about ten seconds per post.

Whilst doing all this fencing experimentation, I laid out the new ‘entry’ to the property. I plan on having a 12′ wide livestock gate. I brought the posts for this but didn’t get around to planting them. The photo above is of this area and – yes – my feeble attempt to redirect people onto the new road that goes around my place instead of right thru the middle of it – including the middle of the airstrip.  Notice the new fence posts!!

I had flown in the previous weekend and found the strip to be just a little soft. Last fall, it was VERY hard so this surprised me. After looking around and talking to some folks, I think this is probably typical for winter. Moisture gets into the soil and then all the freeze/thaw cycles over the course of the winter sort of ‘fluffs’ the soil a bit.

This softness is actually a good thing as I need to do some maintenance on a few bumps. Less than concrete hard will make that task much easier. I’ll then get the roller out and get it packed down again. The down side is that the cows really tear up the airstrip.

Fence… fence… fence…

I should probably note, we haven’t done anything with the barbed wire for the fencing yet.  I do understand that a barbed wire fence without barbed wire isn’t much of a fence.  Gotta get the posts in first…  🙂

We hiked to the top of the cinder cone, did some exploring, loaded the empty tractor fuel barrel on the trailer along with some other returning items, and headed for home.

A very enjoyable and productive day on the continental divide!