Monday, April 4, 2016

Finished Projects

Over the last two weeks we finished up a couple of big projects around the house.  Here Matthew is putting the finishing touches on installing the face of our corner cabinet in the horse trailer.  Good thing we didn't make the cabinet any smaller!
 
After installation, I stained the face and then we added the drawer fronts and cabinet doors.  Luckily, Lowes messed up our replacement drawer front and door a few times on our other cabinets so we had enough extras to match.  We are both very proud of our handy work!
 
Next up: horse fencing.  Over Christmas my dad dug and set about 50 wooden posts around our horse pasture.  Thanks Dad!  We finally got around to installing the wire part of the fencing the weekend before last.  Matthew had an extra day off for Good Friday and we used that time to learn how to install fence.  Our neighbor graciously showed us a few tricks of the trade so that it almost looks professional!  Here we are rolling out the wire.
 
Bucket showing Matthew how to set up the fence stretcher.
 
After we stretched the fencing tight (using a "fence stretcher", a come-along, some chains, and a tree), each strand had to be stapled and wrapped around the post.
 
We ended up installing about 450 feet of fencing, which is a little more than half of the perimeter of the back field.
 
Finished!  Here is a view from the back of the "dry lot" horse pasture (the one we've had for a while that contains the barn).  We installed fencing along the left side and all along the back.
 
Another view from the dry lot.  This shows how we split the back field into two pastures so that I can rotate the horses between them. The pasture on the left is finished while the one on the right only has permanent fencing along the back.  We are saving the right side and front of this pasture for another day! (or year) But now the horses can graze the left pasture at night because of the safer and more permanent fencing.
 
A view from the back right corner of the field, showing the line of fence along the back.  The pastures are finally looking good! Installing the fence wasn't as hard as I thought but we'll be happy to take a break for a while.