Fence Project

Berry Oaks has about 900 feet/274 meters of road frontage on a private dirt road.  The two drives accessing Berry Oaks are protected by cable gates. 

No real security other than to keep the trash dumpers, lovers, and hunters out.  Oh!  I also should mention the ATV's or commonly called 4 wheelers here in the Low Country.  They are the ones that rip up the land.  Usually they are younger people with little regard for others property or privacy.  Local law enforcement have quite a problem with these intruders.

Recently, the local power company came by and cleared their power line easements along the road.  In our case they virtually destroyed our frontage by knocking down trees and opening large gaps in the brush that protected the land from entry, but that is another story yet to be completed. 
We were left with three entry ways, besides the two drives, large enough to drive a pick up through.  With us living here, we have not had a problem, but when we leave the word must go out and the parties begin.  Luckily we have neighbors who look out for the land while we are gone.  I had to, however, block the gaps to keep vehicles from entering them.

After considering options I decided the least expensive way was to make our own fence.  We only need it to last a year or so until we can erect a permanent fence along the property line.  I chose to make the fence of fresh pine.  We have an abundance of young pine trees here so I picked five that were obstructing the drive and the power lines.  Once felled, I cut them to length.  We needed eight fence poles and eight rails. 

I used the thicker tree bases for the posts and the upper thinner sections for the rails.

Digging the post holes was the easier part since the soil here is all sand. 

I used a hand post hole digger and dug all eight holes to a depth of 2 feet/0.6 meters in a half hour.  The posts were 6 feet/1.8 meters each. 

Once the posts were set in the holes, filled and tamped, we placed the rails, two per section, and secured them to the posts with 1/4x6 lag bolts.  All in all it was a day and a half worth of effort. 

The pictures show the results.  We are, now, somewhat secure from the marauding hordes until we return in the fall.