The cattle yards are of hardwood post and rail construction.
Over the years climate and white ants take their toll.
We have been repairing sections constantly since arriving here three decades ago.
It was time for another two sections to be done.
Posts had rotted out at ground level and had broken off. Rails had subsequently been loosen.
The posts used for the yards are higher than normal fence posts as they have to take four rails.
Thankfully we could use the end posts from one of our abandoned vineyard blocks.
Getting them out wasn’t that easy.
I had done a really too good a job putting them in. But eventually, with a lot of digging, we got out the four we needed.
Getting the remnants of the broken yard posts out of the ground after dismantling the rails wasn’t easy either.
With all the rain we’d had over the last four months (nearly three times average), the surrounding clay sub soil was saturated, clingy and sucky.
It was a matter of digging a bigger hole than normal around each one and then levering them out with a crow bar.
The resultant holes soon filled with water.
Not what you want to put new posts into.
We left the holes to dry out over a week or so.
Then we put the new posts in, a little deeper than normal due to the relative thinness of the bottom section and the dampness of the surrounding soil.
Then we tamped them more solidly than usual. The soil we put back in the holes was wet and needed extra work.
My neighbour, a retired lifetime farmer and expert fencer, came over to help with the rails and we soon had them up and parallel.
Good job finished under somewhat difficult weather conditions.
I had previously renovated another section a few weeks before with the help of a visiting friend.
We certainly didn’t face the ‘water problems’ during this exercise and had it finished in less than a day.
