Done with a capital D

So as soon as I woke up yesterday the first thing I did was pop two Advil.  I knew the only way I was going to be able to get through a third day of fence labor was medicated.  My back, knees, arms, and hands were all killing me. Cindy had two classes to teach in the morning so that left me in the back yard solo to attach the 100 foot rolls of 4 foot welded wire fencing to the posts we spent two days erecting.

So once again my prior experience with doing a fence helped me out as I did a lot of the backyard fence myself as well.  I basically would roll out the spool of wire along the fence line and then haphazardly stand it up against the posts.  I then would hammer in a shitload of fence staples into the far end corner post.

I then position my Tacoma off the other end which I used as my pulling point.  I attached my fence stretcher to the tow hitch on the truck and the other end to a pipe I threaded through the fence.  I had a steel cable that was attached to either end of the pipe to give me a more or less even pull from the top and bottom.  I then started to ratchet the fence stretcher which would slowly take the slack out of the fence and get it nice and tight.  I then would go back to the far end and start hammering in staples in each post while the fence is still stretched to maintain as much tension as possible.  When I finally got back to opposite corner post I again sunk a ton of fence staples and then cut the spool of wire.

Even though I had not done this work in a long time things went pretty smoothly.  Cindy was amazed that by the time she got home I was just finishing up the third side.  She helped me do the front of the fence line which was split in two halves by the gate.  We actually had to splice together the one side because I did not have a long enough piece left over.  I was really happy how we managed to make the seam pretty much invisible unless you were looking for it.

Finally the last small section was stretched and attached.  It felt great to have my three days of intense labor at an end.  I spent close to an hour cleaning up all of the tools, parts, and left over materials that were scattered around the yard.  Of course there is more labor to come to “furnish” the backyard to offer the chickens more protection, shade, high ground and fun.

So after clean up we were able to lure the chickens into their new area.  They seemed a bit confused and sad to not have access to the entire back yard as they have their entire lives.  I couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty but I knew in the big picture this was going to be a good thing.  Not only do we have to work on the chickens new area but we also have to work on cleaning up and repairing the rest of the yard that they have systematically ripped apart in their chicken sort of way.

Last night I was so tired and sore I just wanted to veg out.  Today I hope to do at least something fun although I know a trip to Home Depot in the morning is on the schedule to at least get a few basic things to get the chickens rolling in their new yard.