Meadow Creek Farm

Mark and I aren’t happy unless we have huge projects on a To Do list.  Since we finished the fencing project, we have been itching to get into something new.  Yeah right…  We decided we needed to move the run in.  Yup…a 15x30 (huge) run in. The field it currently lives in is not a good place for it.  It just wasn’t being used as much as we would have liked. 

So we started digging…we dug the entire thing out around the foundation, we removed fencing that would impede our move and we shored up the run in and cut it off at the base.  Mark’s friend Jason (thank the Lord for our good friends) came by with his son and they did the skid steer tango.  Two machines…chug chug chugging up the hill.  Holy cow. 

I’m happy to report, the move was met with success.  The run in is now happily situated between our two top pastures.  It looks like it was meant to be there.  We plan to install a gate inside to allow use by both fields, even if we separate horses.  A brilliant idea (it was my idea).  Hee hee  The run in sustained very minor cosmetic damage…nothing we can’t fix.  But it weathered the move nicely. 

Next we need to mend our fences and remove the boards from the run in.  We’ll tackle that soon enough.  Sooooooo…now we have to come up with another project.  Hmmmmmmm…

So this is the year we finally fence our top fields.  For two years we have been working on that pasture...we killed everything off and reseeded.  Mark worked tirelessly to get that field up and gorgeous.   The pasture is ready...now for the fencing.  We had the job priced out and found that the cheapest we could find to install posts, top board and 2.5" electric tape was over $9,000.  We had the money, but realized that over half of the cost was labor.  Well Mark and I are healthy and relatively young (don't laugh!).  So we decided we could tackle this project and we knew we would get a great sense of accomplishment from doing it ouselves.  We rented a pile driver, gased up the skid loader and got cranking. 

We unloaded and placed our posts.  Hard work, but it had to be done.  The first few posts went in nicely...actually looking back, they all went in rather nicely...we only hit a few snags.  The few that gave us trouble, we quickly abandoned...we plan to buy an auger for the skid loader and drill those holes.  At first we were super careful about our levels etc etc...but as we mastered the equipment we got pretty good at judging the straightness of our posts.  I was in the skid loader all of the first day...Mark had the tough job of loading the posts into the pile driver. 

We only had a few glitches...one time the weight got wedged on the hoist.  Not fun.  We had to get on a steep incline and let the weight fall almost out and then reset it.  The second time I was driving a post in and I noticed a huge bolt had come loose from the striker plate/anvil.  Not good.  I stopped the machine and Mark took a look.  What a pain in the arse.  We had to take it all the way back down to the barn...remove the face plate and locate hardware.  We lost nearly an hour.  Luckily Mark is a handy mechanic and he quickly got it all pieced back together.  He installed lock washers (believe it or not this machine did not have any)  and we were back in business.

On the second day, we had some pretty steep terrain...I let Mark take the helm.  We kicked butt the second day...getting nearly finished the perimeter of the field.  I can't explain how good it feels when you have a post that goes in with only a few whams of the pile driver...but it made me smile.  We were very happy with our progress...we were exhausted and sore, but we fell asleep with smiles on our faces.  We were so proud. 

On the third day, we flagged our center line and got our posts unloaded.  We tried to do all the quiet work from 8am-9am.  We waited until 9am to start pile driving...that machine is sooooo noisey!  We didn't want our neighbors to hate us.  We cranked...we were getting pretty good at getting the posts loaded and driven in.  I was in the skid loader part of the day and then Mark took over on the steep parts once again.  We had a system down...our hand signals quickly became a head nod and a thumbs up.  Mark was a master...he had an intuition about the post's levelness.  It made my job easy.  We were aiming to finish by 2:30pm on Monday...we had to get the pile driver back to the rental place in Gaithersburg before 5pm.  We were amazed when we drove our last post in at 2pm.  I actually screamed out loud!  We got the equipment loaded in the back of Mark's truck and headed on our way.  We were at the rental place before 4pm.  Victory!  The best part?  Mark informed them of the equipment malfunction...they gave us a discount...what should have cost us $170 in rental fees, only ended up costing us $65!  Whewhoo!

When we got home we assessed our work...we were both so pleased with ourselves...this was an amazing undertaking, but we accomplished it.  We got the rest of our string lines pulled down and tidied up the field.  I actually even had time to plant my tomato plants.  I have to say that I am very proud of Mark and Me.  We are learning so much and to be able to say that we did all that work ourselves...drove 270 posts into the ground...is a huge feat.  Yay for us!  Please visit our Fencing Project photo album to see more photos of our work.  We plan to work on the top boards this weekend.  So check back in for...to be continued...

Well as promised...this past weekend we started installing our top boards to the fencing.  Compared to the posts...this project went much faster.  It took us some time to get our process down...but we quickly found a rhythm.  The only thing slowing us down was the blasted heat...and my poison ivy.  I must have contracted it the weekend before and it decided to surface this past weekend...and let me tell you...it was miserable.  Hot, sweaty and poison ivy...not a fun combination.  But, I plowed on...I did complain some, but I tried to keep it to a minimum.  We were making progress and I was happy to be getting the project finished. 

Mark made me a preacher (a device that is premeasured out so you can mark the posts to the desired height for which you wish to affix your boards).  I started marking.  We rigged the compressor up to the generator and then put both of them on the motorcycle trailer.  We hauled our 'rig' around with the Chuck Wagon.  It worked perfectly.  Mark had purchased a nail gun which made the chore so much easier.  We would hoist the board up, he would nail it into place and then we would adjust the size with the circular saw.  The most time was spent moving the rig...our new pasture has some pretty nice size hills, so it got a bit tricky at times.  Mark is always pushing me to learn new things...so he gave me a quick nailgun and circular saw 101 lesson.  In no time I was nailing nails and circular sawing!  Fun!

We worked all day long...stopping around 7pm to feed the horses...at that point we were both ready to call it a day...it was strenuous work in high heat.  Those oak boards are heavy!  We only needed to do the dividing fenceline so we decided we could tackle that on Monday.  We were invited to a bonfire at the neighbors but a heavy storm blew through and we figured it must be cancelled.  I took some Benedryl and crashed.  We slept like rocks. 

On Monday we were up bright and early...we discussed the fencing over breakfast.  We were pricing out the electric tape...we figured that the materials alone would cost us pretty much the same price as adding two more boards and making our fencing 3 board.  We made the decision to bite the financial bullet and just go with 3 board.  Having decided that we set out to finish the top boards and use any remaining boards to start the bottom of the fencing.  We were finished everything by 5pm.  We were psyched.  The fencing will look amazing when we are finished.  As Mark says, "We'll look like we have money!"  Looks are so deceiving.  hee hee  We have an auger on order for the skid loader as we have a few posts that the pile driver could not sink.  Once we get those taken care of...we will order up more board and get back to fence building. 

Mark says we should do this for other people and charge lots of money...I say I'm never gonna do this again.  I do have to say, it is a project that we are very proud of and have had lots of fun doing...I've learned so much and feel a sense of accomplishment.  This is something we will look at for years to come and say, "We did that!"  Stay tuned as we will be working on this project for the next few weeks. 

I'll be happy when I can make an addition to our website that is not about the fencing project.  Not that I'm not having a great time with it, but dang it, it's taking up all of Mark's and my free time!  Phooey!  Since we have a new young horse (Buddy) that I'm working with, I would much rather be riding him, than holding up, cutting and nailing boards.  So Mark and I entered this weekend knowing that we are in the home stretch of our project.  We ordered the auger, and it should be in this week.  We need it to completely finish the project...but we were able to hang the last of the boards (that we could hang) this weekend. 

Along the way, we stopped to make some modifications to our generator...funny how most companies don't really follow the rule "form follows function".  It was obvious after the first few days, that some modifications to the generator were needed.  The wheels kept falling off and we bent the one brace.  Woops!  Guess all those trips on the trailer up and down the hill were finally taking their toll on poor Mr. Generator.  We took the old braces off and fixed some two by fours together to make a more stable brace...it worked perfectly, but it also took about an hour out of our day.  No biggie...I was ready for a break.  Oh and remember when I said I had poison ivy on my back?...well turns out I actually had shingles.  If you aren't familar with it, go look it up on the internet...it was horrible.  Luckily I was smart enough to go to the doctor early...she put me on some anti viral drugs and it's almost completely cleared up.  Only way I can describe it is you 'feel' every nerve ending in the affected dermatome.  An area the size of a foot print on my back that hurt, tingled and itched.  Heat made it worse.  <sigh>   But...it's on its way out...so I am very happy.  They say in folks my age, shingles are stress induced...gheez...you think?!  I'd say I have my share of stress right now...but hey that's all part of the game I guess.

So Mark and I started on Sunday around 10:30am...we were finished by about 3:30pm...phew.  I'd say we have about another day or so of work ahead of us...not bad.  We still need to hang the gates I purchased and get some water tubs up there...but that's no big deal.  We plan to stain the fences a dark red.  We'll use the tank sprayer for that and may not actually do it until Fall.  Guess we'll see how long we can go without a project. 

Anyhow...the fences are almost done and Mark was even able to start chainsawing the tops...looks nice huh? 

I almost wondered if this day would ever come.  Seems we have spent all of our weekends working on our fencing project.  Seems?  We HAVE spent all of our weekends on this project.  Our neighbors have gotten a real kick out of our progress...it wasn't an easy project, but we succeeded. 

The last few weekends we have been getting the balance of the boards up...we had to borrow a walk behind auger from the folks that we ordered our skid steer auger from...they were kind enough to lend us one so we could wrap up the project.  It worked great in getting the last few of the posts sunk.  On Father's Day Mark and I went on a very nice trailride and then we set to work.  We were determined to get the last few posts in before heading to a party at my Aunt and Uncle's house.  We busted hump and got it done.  It felt great to know we were almost finished.  I figured if I don't dry and style my hair, we can get them all sunk...needless to say I arrived at the party with a wet head.  Oh well...  

We made quick work of getting the last of the boards up...we did great with our counting...we only needed 16 extra boards (outside of the 3 bundles we bought).  We had very little waste...we were careful to use cut boards wherever we could.   I had picked up our gates the weekend I brought Buddy (our new horse) home.  They fit so nicely in my trailer.  :)  We hung gates this past weekend and Mark has been cutting the tops with our chainsaw.  He's gotten a good portion of it done, but the chainsaw has cried "Uncle"...seems we need to get the chain sharpened.   

All that is left to do is the procurement of a water trough and we need to build loafing sheds (a place the horses can go to get out of the elements).  As Mark says, "An easy project since everything will be in one place."  God love him.  I hope to have horses up there in the next few weeks in the evening...since the sheds won't be ready yet.  I'll be sure to get some pics of that...I feel like we should bust a bottle of champagne on one of the gates!  Speaking of gates...we ended up wanting a 12 foot gate where we were originally going to put an 8 footer...we needed one more gate, but Mark's truck was in the shop.  That didn't stop Mark...he went and got that 12ft gate with his Bajaj 3 wheeler...oh and he also got a 4'x6' stall mat and two 50lb bags of feed.  Wow!

We started this project on May 19th and concluded (for the most part) on June 25th.  Except for the first weekend (when we had the pile driver) where we worked for 3 days straight, we pretty much only had Sundays and a few hours on some evenings.  I think it's pretty amazing what we accomplished...Mark calls it quality time together...hee hee...not sure most women would feel that way, but I do.  I've added a few pics to the photos section...please take a look when you can.

If you know anyone that needs a fence done...DON'T CALL US!  :)