The Beginning Farmer

It’s another busy day at the office, at the fair, and on the farm. But, I did want to point out a great overview article about the fencing project that Gary Duncan put up on the Powerflex website. You can check out his thoughts and some pictures of the work by taking this link. I think Mr. Duncan did a great job of boiling down our three days of work into a nice article and it is pretty cool to see how far we have come! Of course I need to thank him again (and my uncle) for all of the help. Without their help we wouldn’t have cattle up against new fence now … but, we do!

There may be a point when you get tired of blog posts about fencing, but right now I’m just so excited about it. Plus, yesterday I made quite a bit of progress on the exterior fencing along the woods and I’m getting pretty close to fencing in some cows. There are three sections of fence along the woods and I was able to get all three wires up on the shortest section and even have them clipped in before dark. But, that was only part of my night.

After work I loaded up a trailer full of Powerflex posts and other supplies and took off. In just a little over one hour I was able to pound in 71 sixty inch Powerflex posts 18 inches into the ground. After I had all those in it took about another hour to go through and drill three holes in each post for the cotter pins. Then with the sun still up (or at least it was still light enough even though it was cloudly) I decided to put up a couple more wires! I feel like I’m getting the hang of it now, even though I still can’t break the wire like Gary Duncan did.

I guess I don’t have a lot of other fence building experience to draw on, but I feel like working with the smooth hi-tensile wire is fairly easy once you get the hang of it. And I know that attaching the wire to the Powerflex posts is extremely easy, plus I love the fact that I don’t have to worry about shorts on the posts like I would with steel.

All in all, I think I’m just a few evenings of work away from getting everything up and running except for a bit of fence around the yard. That will be a day of celebration!

It is county fair season here in Iowa (and probably around many parts of the country), so that means it is time for kids all over to throw on their farm clothes and spend a few days showing their livestock and hanging out in the barns. I love this time of year because I think it really does cause the kids involved to slow down a little and really enjoy life without all the cultural stimulation, but I have a feeling that the 4-H shows of today are quite a bit different than there were 50 years ago and it does cause me to think a little.

This morning I spent some time at the breeding ewe show and watched kids of all ages show their sheep and take home their ribbons and trophies. There was an interesting comment from the judge that did cause me to think a little about the world of showing livestock and what we have to look forward to with our children (because 4-H is probably in their future if they want). As he was judging a class of eight ewes he said something along these lines,

“My son is big into the club lamb world and if he were here right now he would be scratching his head at the order I have them lined up. But, I’m a farmer and our lambs need to make us money so I like this first ewe because she looks like she is ready to go to the pasture with the ram.”

I am actually glad that he said that because in my mind that is what 4-H should all be about … kids showing animals that are and will be productive on their farms or on a nearby farm. But, I think there is a growing push to buy in livestock that will help bring the prizes instead of producing good stock on the farm. I hope there are judges like that when our kids are showing.

So, do any of you have any experience in 4-H or the livestock showing world? Like most of the farming world it is pretty foreign to me, but I’m interested in learning more!

The past couple of weeks has been all about fence on the blog and on the farm. But, that hasn’t been the only thing happening. As you can see from the picture above the builders finished with their part of the shed and now the rest of the work is up to me (and hopefully the help of some other people). We ended up with 13 foot side walls because there was some extra room on the posts (which is really nice) and because we have the higher sidewalls it also means the lean-to is a foot taller as well on the outside wall. All in all I really love the shed and can’t wait to get some steel up on the sides and get it closed in. In the meantime I’m just glad to park stuff inside and keep it kind of out of the elements.

Our super-duper late calving season is also continuing, but I think we may be getting close to the end of it. So far this season we have had four calves with three of them being heifers (two black and one dun). Those are pretty good percentages, but it doesn’t give us very many steers for the freezer. One neat thing about the most recent dun heifer born is that it happened right up by the fence where Gary Duncan was working. So we have so pictures from early on in it’s life!

Other than that things are moving right along and it is beginning to feel like things are starting to come together. The work does seem a little overwhelming, but like people keep telling me … it will get done!

Yesterday was Gary Duncan’s last day helping out on our farm and I just want to say … Thank You Mr. Duncan (I guess my habit of using “Mr.” on the blog is causing him some grief back at the office)! The help that he was able give was incredible and really gave us some help in a very important project. Beyond the teaching though I have to say that he just plain worked hard, and hopefully we didn’t wear him out. By the end of the day yesterday we had all the fence up along the roads and the grounding rods installed.

We were also lucky enough to have a couple visitors today that drove down to check out the Powerflex posts and the hi-tensile fence. They were a couple we met during our Grow Your Small Market Farm class and I have to admit that I learned a bunch more with them here because they asked a lot of great questions. Later in the eveing while I was putting the finishing touches on some fence a neighbor stopped by and said, “Okay, you have piqued my curiosity”. We were able to have a nice talk about fence and I shared a little about our new fence and the Powerflex posts in particular.

This was such a great experience and I am becoming a big believer in hi-tensile fencing and the Powerflex posts. But more importantly I think I have learned enough to finish the rest of the fence. As a truly beginning farmer there are a lot of things that I do on the farm that I have never done before. Thanks to the help of people like Mr. Duncan, our friends, and of course our family. Keep checking back for updates on the fence and I’ll let you know how it goes!

Tuesday was a nice day. It was partly cloudy with a breeze that kept things cool for all of the work. Tuesday night into Wednesday it stormed and stormed, but when we woke up yesterday morning the sun was shining and except for all the mud it was another great day to work. So, with the weather in our favor we started early and got quite a bit of work done. If you were out on the farm working with us today you probably would have heard me say things like this:

• “Ahh, my boots are stuck in the clay/mud/goop!”
• “I am ready to be done with the wood posts and move on to the rest of the fence.”
• “There is no way I could have every got this done without the help of you (talking to Gary Duncan of PowerFlex).”
• “I cannot believe how light weight these posts are.”
• “There is no way I could pull one of these out of the ground.”
• “I’ve put a few different kinds of posts up on this farm in the past year, but by far I like putting this one in the best (in reference to the PowerFlex posts).”
• “Check this out, I’m carrying the post driver and five posts with no problem. No way I could do that with steel posts.”
• “You know, I think even I can figure out how to do this (in reference to putting up the fence myself).”
• “That is so cool, but I can’t do it (me talking about how Mr. Duncan breaks off the wire with a clean break).”

That is just a small sampling of the positive things I had to say about our new Hi-Tensile fence and PowerFlex posts. I really can’t believe how cool the process is of putting up this fence and strength (and looks) of the posts. One really cool thing about the PowerFlex posts is how easy it is drive them into the ground. Granted, the ground was soft after the rain, but we drove them in so quickly with just a regular post driver. If the ground is more solid you can just pound a pilot hole and then pound in your PowerFlex post. Let’s just put it this way, in about thirty minutes time we put in about 70 posts!

Another thing that I found really exciting is how easy it is to attach the wire to the posts. We made a guide to place the holes at the correct spacing on the posts and then just used a cordless drill and a 7/32’s bit to drill through in no time. Now we have one section of fence along the road completely done. I can’t tell you how great that is and how amazing it looks!

Today we are back at it again and I think we will finish up the rest of the fence along the road. After that I will move onto the three-wire fence along the inside of the trees. I have set that up with a couple of gate openings so that I can get back there with a tractor to cut wood and also so we can flash graze the cattle in the woods and along the edges. Make sure you check back tomorrow to see what we get done!

Also, if you are in the area today, feel free to drop on by to see the process and talk to Mr. Duncan.

We are opening our farm up today to anyone interested in PowerFlex fencing. Mr. Duncan is using a variety of products on our farm to show different options available with their products. He will also be here to answer any questions about their fencing system. So if you are wanting to learn more about this type of fence, drop us an e-mail and we’ll send you directions to our farm.

We have started! I can’t tell you how great it is to actually say those words and see the progress as we get work done. Gary Duncan showed up yesterday morning with a truck load of materials and the know-how to get this fence going! Shortly after that my Uncle Loren pulled in with a tractor (my cousin Verne had also brought a tractor and post-hole digger Monday), a mower, and a bunch of tools. Before I knew it corner posts and wood transition posts were going in the ground and by the end of the evening we even had our first PowerFlex posts up on the perimeter.

In the picture above you can see Mr. Duncan teaching me how to tie a wire knot. Let me just tell you that it is one cool little trick. This is the process that he uses to tie the insulators to the wood posts and to tie the line wire to the insulator. In other places he used a crimp sleeve to make the loop. He is doing different things in different places so that I can get an idea of what is possible, but I have to say the wire knots seem the best because you don’t really need any tools. Check out this link to go to a little article that explains the process.

This picture shows what much of my day involved. We had to put in the corner posts and line posts in order to start stringing the wire so there was a lot of digging to do. As you can see the John Deere 4020 and post hole digger came in handy. But, there was still some hand digging to do in order to get the posts deep enough. We are pretty much done with the perimeter posts, but there are a couple brace posts that need to go in yet. Today we are going to be focusing on putting in the posts along the woods. This will be a three wire fence so our bracing won’t need to be as stout, but Mr. Duncan also pointed out that we could easily add a floating brace in the future if we needed to … you can read about floating braces on the PowerFlex page at this link.

Finally, as I mentioned we even have the PowerFlex posts up on the first stretch of fence. In this picture you can see Mr. Duncan pounding in a post with a regular steel post driver. If you look really closely in the picture (you can click on it to enlarge it) you can see a blue thing sticking out of the ground just past the wood post in the picture. This is a tool that he used to make a pilot hole and then would pound in the post. He said we could just pound the posts in without the pilot hole, but he liked to do it this way because it helped get them in the ground straight.

Of course, chime in with any questions you have about the process and I’ll make sure to take some time to answer (after asking Mr. Duncan of course!). Check back tomorrow for another update!

If you have been following for the past five days or so you know that the fence work is set to begin today and you have also had a chance to read up on the type of fence we are doing and the posts that we are using. Today is the day we begin putting it all together and as luck would have it it is also the day that it has decided to rain and have storm chances! But, I’m going to press on as much as possible and complete all that I we can so that we can get this fence up. Keep checking back each day for pictures of the progress.

In a somewhat related note the shed is going up again (except that we might get rained out today) and I’m guessing they have about one days worth of work left. They are only putting up the roof and the framing so it doesn’t take as long … the steel on the sides will be another project for us…