Fencing

As some of you may know / remember, we received funding last year to fence of our part of Rushy lagoon, that is fence along the paddock to prevent stock going onto the lagoon, and to plant and fence of a grove of trees with Eucalyptus Morrisbyi, a threatened species growing locally in Cremorne.

Part of the funding agreement is that we do the labour work and then we got funding to provide most of the materials. We also did get money to get the posts driven into the ground using a tractor, something that saves a huge amount of time compared to doing it manually by digging a hole first. It also makes the fence a lot more stable than doing it by hand in our heavy clay soils.

But before the tractor could come in we spent a day and a half marking where all the posts should go. This was done using a string line and a tape measure, and then we placed pegs for where the posts would have to go. The neighbour with the tractor could then come in and do his work.

Following the tractor work with the timber posts, we then put in star pickets every 4 meters, so 3 star pickets between every timber post (as these are 16 meters a part). Again we used a string line and then a tape measure before we could actually knock in the posts. Luckily we got to borrow a post driver from our neighbour, so we didn't have to worry about a sledge hammer.

When all the posts were in, we could then start doing the wire work. On the lagoon fence we are using a wire called stock tight 90/6/30, which basically means it is 90 cm high, has 6 wires strains horizontally and one wire every 30 cm vertically. Then we installed a single plain wire on top, at a height of 120cm above ground. Should we need to, we can always put in an electric wire later, but that depends on stock requirements.

For the grove we used what is called a rabbit wire which is 90 cm high and has a mesh with 25mm openings. This to keep the rabbits out from the trees. Then on top of this we are using chicken wire which is only fixed with about 30 cm to the posts, then the rest hangs over and stays floppy. This is to prevent the possums from climbing over and then eating the trees.

But enough text, here are some pictures.

Geir working on fencing, fixing the wire to the strainer post.

Just a different angle for the same work.

Now undoing the strainer that we borrowed from a neighbour - great that we didn't have to buy any of the equipment !

Fencing completed around the grove. Rabbit wire at the bottom and chicken wire on top.

Same again, but different angle. The grove contains about 200 trees, of which 130 are E. Morrisbyi.

Lagoon fence. We included some gates in this fence in case we need to get a tractor in to slash the grass between the trees and also up to the fence line.

Same again, but different angle.

Whilst we were in a fencing mood, we also did the fence around our waste water system. The purpose here is to stop people (and specifically children) climbing in and falling into the dam, so we used rabbit wire which is hard to put your feet in for climbing.

Just to show how dry it is at the moment. We have used all the water we had in the dam, and due to the evaporation, our waste water system is currently not "producing" any excess water. It all goes to keeping the reeds alive and then the rest seem to evaporate in the second stage of the reed bed. But when the Autumn comes, we should hopefully start to fill the dam up again so we can reuse the water.

Any problems, please email webmaster. This page was last updated 24/07/2008