Friday, March 22, 2013

Fence off

New fence good fence.

Last summer, in a fit of fealous jage, (if you don't know who Peter Sellers is you're too young for my blog..Get off.) I decided unilaterally to purchase new fencing for my horses.

One of my previous horses had gotten spooked and ran through our old two strand smooth wire electric fence and cut her leg. I was furious. At myself ,because I knew it wasn't the best kind of fencing and I should've done something about it years earlier.

So after taking care of the horse (yes, she came out fine after a few weeks) I did about 10 seconds worth of research, called some guy who came with his guys and put up new fence. Nothing too fancy or expensive but certainly better than what we had. I chose a poly tape, 1/2 wide, white, that is not near as good as a nice wide planked polyurethane board fence  but still a couple steps better than the smooth wire that can't be seen well by man or beast.

Corners are made of steel t-posts while supporting posts up and down the pastures are lightweight fiberglass poles. Simple to use handles make it easy to get in and out of pastures.



Keith was mildly concerned (he voiced his concern after my temper tantrum as he is clearly brilliant in that manner of self protection). He feared the new fence would not hold up to the high winds we get here on the prairie.

But I asked the guy who came with the other guys who said Naaaaaa. This fence does fine in high winds. So I said in my best mafia voice "make it so"  and they did.

And over the winter, the wind blew and the ice fell and the snow swirled and the fence...came tumbling down.


Yeah, I'm aware the pic is sideways. My Kodak software seems to be melting down. Just tip your head to the left OK? 

Here and there, bits and bobs came loose, broke off and fluttered on the breeze and the ground. Seems the man of few words husband was once again in the know. And when the fence broke and broke again and broke still another time he very patiently worked with me as we learned how to fix it.

Turns out it's not so hard. If you can use a pair of scissors and you can tie and knot, you can fix this fence.



And it is easier to see when it is broken as when the smooth wire was down I might not have noticed it until I manged to roll up about ten yards of it in the riding mower. So all in all I am happy with my purchase, except on those occasional windy days, that come about every other day.

12 comments:

  1. The horses here are fenced in the same way. Not the prettiest, but as long as one checks on it regularly, it does the job. So far this year, they've only escaped ONCE.

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  2. Hi Donna;
    We use a ton of poly tape here in Maine and the way to avoid having it pull off in the wind is to put many twists in it- the wind doesn't catch and drag on it nearly as badly and come spring there is far less repair to do. Good luck!

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  4. Hey, Donna could you take a picture of the end posts? We are thinking of installing this type of fence and are newbies when it comes to fencing.

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  5. I thought you said your dog doesn't bite!

    That is not my dog.

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  6. Cro, I really don't know why we bother fencing our animals anyway. If loose they just come knocking on the back door. Why leave agood deal?

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  7. Sal, My husband suggested that. I didn't like the way it looked so now I'm the one fixing the fence AND twisting it as it goes. Another point for the hubby for anyone keeping score

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  8. Martha time for you to visit. We'll show you the WHOLE fence!

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  9. Carolyn, you OK? Sun real bright over your way?

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  10. you made me laugh - several times. first with the crack about being too young. :)

    i've seen a few folks around here use those electric tapes for their horses. and i've seen one of them rinky-dink it together and watched it come down a couple of weeks later. but i'm glad it is much more visible for man and horse. :)

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  11. Nice post of update that to cover our field that should be marked to save thing.. keep posting more update..

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  12. *headtilt*

    I guess it does help with making it more visible and less likely to hurt the horses. Have there been occasions where they would still run through them?

    Marvel Farias

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