I knew we were all going to be tired when this weekend was over… that realization hit me as I was walking around the hardware store at 7:30 Saturday morning carrying a 10 lb. sledgehammer. And I was right. Those posts that we laid out last weekend weren’t going to pound themselves into the ground. I tried using the front end loader on the Kubota to push them into the ground, but the Kubota is just a tad too light, so instead of pushing down the posts I just lifted the front of the tractor off the ground. Luckily we’ve had a bit of rain this spring, so the ground has softened up making it at least possible to pound the posts into the clay soil. After swinging the sledgehammer like a lumberjack all morning I was happy to be done with the fence posts.

Next up, Farm Boy Sid helped me drive nails in the posts to lock them in place. Once the posts were all up (and mostly vertical) we put in corner braces… more posts to pound into the ground. Finally finished with the posts we could start hanging the fencing. The fencing we used was 7-1/2′ tall plastic fencing that is designed to keep out deer of the gardens.

The fence is secured to the posts by zip ties. Lots of zip ties. 500 zip ties. Farm Boy Spencer got in on the action, and was the zip tie dispenser.

More fencing…

And more zip ties…

Wash, repeat.

Fence is done! Wrong. Once the deer fencing was up we moved onto the rabbit fencing, which is 2′ high plastic coated chicken wire. This is to keep the rabbits from chewing through the deer fencing. Guess what? MORE ZIP-TIES!

Time for a break…

Breaks done. Next up, tension cable and Gripples! Forgot to take pictures of the gripples, but they are a neat little trinket that is used to pull wire through and the wire can’t slide back out of it. Hard to explain, but it allows you to tension wire easily. We ran cable around the top of the entire fence, and then a second run of cable 3′ off the ground. How do you attach the fence to the cable? ZIP TIES!

NOW the fence is done. Wait, forgot about the ground stakes… drive a 8″ long aluminum ground stake every 5′ to hold the fencing to the ground so small animals cant get in to the gardens under the fence.

I think the fence is done… well, except for the gate, but the fence manufacturer forgot to send us some of the gate pieces, so at least we are done with the fence for the time being.

Once the fence was done we went to Bob’s Taco Station in Rosenberg, TX. Good tacos, but if you are doing farm work I recommend getting twice the number that you would expect to eat, because they are on the small side.

Lunch break is over. A quick stop at the hardware store to pick up more irrigation supplies and back to the farm. Luckily we are now adept at running irrigation, so this was a quick project.

One project that wasn’t quick was one that took Farm Boy Sid the vast majority of the weekend… remember the rains that I mentioned that allowed us to drive the posts into the clay? Well, those same rains pooled in areas between the raised beds. Sid dug and trenched all weekend. He did an amazing job of getting the water out of the gardens, so the ground will now have a chance to dry up.

Tired and dirty, we went home. It was another beautiful weekend at Three Sisters Farm.