Last night I was hanging a little gate I'd made a couple of months back. It had been leaning up against the shed for all that time and as the girls weren't back when I got home from work I seized the moment and hung it.
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| New gate hung (made out of pallets) |
The reason being I need to get the small bottom field ready for the sheep as they're in desperate need of fresh grass but It has three gate ways and only one gate (well two now). This little gate fixed the hole into the orchard (which is pretty important to keep sheep free) and I already have a swinging gate onto the road, but the other gate might just have to be tied with baler twine for now.
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| The bottom field almost ready for sheep |
This was something I didn't want to do as it's the being of a slippery slope. I grew up on a farm which had two swinging gates across all it''s fields, my childhood was spent jumping out of the Landrover or tractor to drag open the gate for my dad. Normally held in place with three bits of string and you had to leave it in a certain place or it would fall over. Sometimes when checking the sheep I would have to open three of these gates and close them again, it used to drive me mad.
As the land was rented there was never a huge incentive for dad to hang them but I was always certain mine would all swing.
Maybe one day!
Who else ties their gates with string and has to drag them open?
Me! Me! Me! AND they are made out of pallets. A true smallholder Kev. Good on yer.
ReplyDeleteGill
I slip more into the smallholder sterotype every year I think. My beard was just the start!
DeleteIn all the gates I have hung here over the last couple of years only one was put in place with wire and that was the emergency fence I put up to move my bee hives this Winter. All the rest I have managed to get put up so they would swing although one or two have now sagged a bit so everyone but me bitches about them :)
ReplyDeleteAt the rate things are going now though I am so far behind due to the rain I might just do a couple of wire hung gates to save a bit of time.
I think I'm going to use string as I'm goingto move the sheep before work in the morning but I'll try and hang it properly on my next day "off". (well that's the plan!)
DeleteOur "no sag" gates were sagging. We got ride of the absolute worst one and got gate wheels for the rest!
ReplyDeleteStill have to remind my non-farmy husband to close gates that were closed when you got to them and leave the ones open that were open....
We have problems with dog walkers. The one day the gate was left open where the sheep were into a field of hay that was ready for cutting. Luckily the sheep stayed put but it would have been a nightmare to get them back!
DeleteThe only gate I have is the steel gate across the Jeep trail , down at the foot of the mountain. It's got a monstrous chain and lock on it. Still a pain to have to stop, open the gate, drive through, stop close the gate......
ReplyDeleteWhen I'm done here they'll be 7 big gates and 7 small gates and probably more when I divide up more areas. Lots of hangin, I should get good at it by the end!
DeleteThere are lots of ingenious methods of using "what you have " to create gate and latches here in Australia. Especially "bushies " farmers who live in remote properties who use what they have . Nice gate by the way.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to google some. I saw some wooden hinges made on a log cabin in Alaska once and I always want to make some. I thought it was such a good use of what the man had around him.
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