"Good Fences make good Gardens" - Frost?

Ok that was a play on Frost's "Mending Wall"


This past weekend, Farmchick was gone for the weekend leaving the cowpokes to their lonesome. I had big plans of putting up the fence around the 50+' X 70+' garden. I had procured my father and a buddy for helping me, and my mother was going to take the buckaroos for a bit so that we could get a head start.

I have never put up a fence before, so I was hoping that it would be a somewhat easy process and easy for my father and I to do as my buddy could only stay for a while, and my father had back surgery last year and can't do too much lifting/pulling. The weekend/week before I had taken the two rolls of fence that I had scavenged from around the farm and unrolled them to measure them off. Try measuring a 125' piece of fence with a 3 year old cowboy who like his daddy is rather ADD. Let's just say that one of the cats had a "rolled-up" ride once. Again my "ARness" came out to help make sure that once my help was here I had it all planned out and that we could get right to work. I drew a diagram of where exactly each fence would go and where we would start. So I had to go buy some more fence to make it all the way around, and I also needed to buy some chicken wire. I'd be using the chx wire to attach to the fence on the first 2 feet from the ground. The boys and I went to the "tractor man's" store (Atwoods/Tractor Supply/Orschelns) to get the fence to finish the job. They of course had a blast.


I had to make the big cattle gate immobile for the time being so that I could keep varmints out. I made a gate out of fence and a T-post. Thankfully my dad had a wench so that we could stretch out the fence on each length. So what I didn't realize is how much of a "girl" I am when it came to my hand strength...WOW did my right hand ache after a day of clipping the fence and wires, and twisting the wires all day long. Here's the eldest cowboy leaning on his new fence with the chx wire put up also.

Farm chick had a great idea of putting a "playpen" area that the boys couldn't get out of while we work the garden this year. So I moved this big tractor tire and two tires I just had taken off my car and put them into this area attached to the edge of the garden that will only have one way in; from the garden by way of a fence gate with T-post. We're planning on putting a tarp over the top for some shade and filling the tires with some dirt for them to play in. They already can't wait to get in them and play in them.

The only problem is that when my dad left we had put up all the chx wire that I had, however I still needed another 100' of wire to finish. So the cowboys and I saddled up and made our way back to the "tractor man's" store and got some more chx wire. Then we put up the rest and the next day we used garden staples to hold the fence down to the ground and keep varmints out. I know that the fence is going to work well, considering Trigger, one of our cats got stuck in there and couldn't find a way out...yay! Mission accomplished. So the hope is that with the good fence we'll be able to have a good garden because we WON'T have any raccoons, possums, skunks, bunnies, etc getting in. I know that we'll still battle the deer, but you can only do so much.