Hurricane Hermine churned and bobbled in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico for Wabout 13 days before she decided what she wanted to do. All eyes were on the weather, almost hourly, because we were situated on what would be the south east quadrant - which is not the best spot to be. As we have said before, we don't live on our farm yet. We are a short distance away, which made for a sleepless night for at least one of us (the other slept like a rock because HE knew he would be the first to arrive at the farm and start dealing with the potential damage).
At our home, Hermine showed just what she was made of about 2:00 am Friday morning. The wind howled and the rain was sideways for about 2 solid hours. When daylight came, the damage to our immediate neighborhood was not horrible. Must Bee Kiddin' Farm came out okay, but not unscathed. There were about 5 trees down on our fence, and countless trees down in the interior of the property. My employer was kind enough to let me leave early on Friday so that I could help clean up and get the fence line cleared. As for the livestock - well, we are thrilled to report that we have Category 1 Hurricane Proof goats and chickens. We are very lucky. No losses of coops, interior net fences or loss of livestock life. We are still cleaning up, and will be for a while, but we are very grateful.
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It's been awhile since we put up a video, and thought you might like to see our completed fence. This first video shows the completed east fence line. If setting the property’s corner posts was declared as the first milestone, then completing the perimeter fence must be the second milestone. With that logic chain established I make the OFFICIAL announcement that we have completed the property’s second milestone. The perimeter seven strand high tensile electric fence is DONE.
Yeah, I know it’s kind of anticlimactic since it was detailed as the main feature in the September Wrap-Up, but you know player...that’s how we roll. The Internet crowd is the last to know. Heck, there’s barely enough time in the day to get all the work done and catch the latest episode of the Walking Dead (thank goodness for the DVR). Hmmm, I wonder what effect 9 kV would have on a walker? Yes, the fence is finished and has been juiced with a consistent charge of at least 8.5 kV on all five hot lines. The deep cycle marine battery powering the fence is doing a good job and needs to be rotated for charging every 6 days. Not bad at all. The plan for now is to simply rotate the battery out and bring it back home for recharging. A solar charging station on the property is planned, but not in the works as of right now. Of course I’ll be detailing all the fencing particulars in detail one of these days in an article. I hope to detail the labor involved as well as disclose a full accounting of the costs. You know, get some real-world information and data out there for the folks actively researching this fencing stuff like I was for about the last 18 months. What I will say is that high tensile fence installation is very affordable and can be installed with limited labor (yep, a single person sure can run all those lines as long as they don’t mind the miles). Since completing the MAJOR fencing project lots of people have been asking, “what’s next?”. Well, we’re chomping at the bit to get a bunch of smaller projects started. But, our main focus as of right now is getting some help with the land. Land clearing efforts are still in full force and can be a daunting task. Well, we’re happy to say that everything is full steam ahead and we’re actively recruiting workers right now. That’s right, we’re scouting recruits for help with land clearing efforts and we’ll update that exciting search as it unfolds. Stay tuned, this farming thing is about to get out of hand!//mr It seemed like we blinked and September was over. It was another hot month here in Florida, and the progress on our property has continued to moved forward. Once again the south line gave us some serious fits trying to get it exactly fence post ready and put us behind by almost a week on our list of goals. We beat that thing into submission, finally! What we accomplished in September:
Thank you to everyone for following and commenting. It really means a lot to us both. October will be another exciting month for us and our property. Stay tuned for more articles, pictures and videos!//tr mr This video shows the west border cleared and ready for fence posts. This was a pretty straight forward area to clear. This video shows the connector trail from where the north trail and the driveway meet. This is one of my favorite places so far on the property to walk. Very peaceful! More central drive clearing and the establishment of the first trail into the property. The plan is to establish connector trails that lead from the central driveway and link to each of the property borders. The north connector trail is the first of these inroads. While a little late, this video will show you the beginning of our driveway progress. This enabled us to park in the center of the land, off the road on our own property. It was the beginning of the "fridge trail" and "south line link trail" making easier access to the entire property. August was a long, hot month. The hottest August we've had since living in Florida. It definitely gives meaning to the term dog days of summer. In looking back on what we accomplished over the last month it's quite amazing. In no particular order:
While the heat tried it's best, it didn't beat us. We pushed through and made a lot of progress. Stay tuned - September is going to be so much fun!!! Today we set our four corner posts. This was a pretty simple task that was made more difficult due to extreme heat conditions and limited vehicular access. We persevered and completed the task.
Our corner posts were purchased through the local dock maker and are basically marine-grade pylons. Each post is no less than 7 inches in diameter and hand dug to a depth of 3 foot deep, back filled and packed tight with a 60 pound bag of Sackrete. From start to finish it took us about 4 hours to complete this milestone task. Sitting at home, clean, comfortable, and toasting with a glass of wine in the air conditioning, it's starting to really sink about how important this job was for us today. Any good project starts with a solid cornerstone - today we laid four of them. The foundation for our fence and ultimately, our farm.//tr |
About UsIn 2014 a couple of 40-somethings decided to make a change. The purchase of 10 raw, pine scrub acres along Florida's Nature Coast started it all. This is that story. Archives
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