When I first moved to the farm the perimeter of the property was fenced with barb wire. When I got livestock I needed to fence some pastures (Tuck and I couldn’t spare more than a few hours a day supervising goats.) I couldn’t afford to fence the entire property so I decided to fence a section of land on the south side of the drive in front of the house and running to the road. The guy who I had hired to put in the horse corral was no longer in the area so I was starting from scratch looking for someone capable of putting in a decent fence with woven wire. Unfortunately no one I asked could provide me with a recommendation so I was forced to rely upon the yellow pages to find a company in my area which did fencing. That was a very costly mistake*.
So a couple of years later when I needed another pasture fenced in I negotiated a trade where I would buy the materials and help with the fencing in exchange for running some additional animals on pasture the coming spring and summer. I could (and have) spent hours walking that fenceline checking for problems and marveling at how well it has stood up and came close to crying when a branch fell on one section and damaged the fence.
Now that I’m in a position to fence in another section of property, I’ve arranged to have the fence erected by the same person who did the second fence. In preparation for the project, I discovered a huge cottonwood had fallen on the barb wire fence in a very hard to get to spot. I prevailed upon another friend with a chainsaw to come out and remove the cottonwood.
Not a redwood, but . . . .
*Lesson Three: if a person doesn’t know anything about livestock they probably also don’t know anything about putting up a fence intended to keep livestock contained.
Quibeyn Farm 