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THE WESTERN PRODUCER | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | JULY 14, 2011
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COLUMN | FENCING ISSUES
Planting posts: tough digging makes for easy pounding COWBOY LOGIC
RYAN TAYLOR
T
he only job where a common fella gets to start at the top is digging postholes, I’ve heard. I’ve had the fortune, good or bad, of starting at the top of a lot of those jobs. I always took three things with me: my Ph.D. (post hole digger), a spade and a tamping stick. Two tools for digging and one for packing the dirt back in a space half the size it came out of because I displaced it with a post. Digging post holes, especially the big, deep holes for fence corners, corral gates and railroad ties, is a contemplative business. You have to pause once in a while to catch your breath, gauge your depth and straightness, and ponder why you chose such an occupation for your life. When the job is done, though, it’s one of those things where you can stand back, take a look and see that you’ve made a difference. Measurable results. Quantifiable progress. The little things that bring satisfaction to physical jobs. It’s hard to complain much about digging postholes when you live in
sand country. No rocks, and the digging is easy, except when the sand gets so dry your digger can’t hang onto it long enough to get it out of the hole. It takes awhile to finish a hole when you get only a few tablespoons of dry sand to the top each time you send your digger down. Dry isn’t an issue for us now. What we are dealing with, however, is watching a four foot post hole fill halfway up with water. When we’re not on the high sands of the ranch, we’re digging in the low ground and meadows. There, you can’t get the blue clay and gumbo to come off your digger without scraping it off with your foot. And as hard as you might tamp it, if you don’t bring in some outside sand or gravel, those posts in the bog are going to float and wiggle. Still, we’ve always had it better than the country where Dad spent some of his youth in the Missouri River breaks near Culbertson, Montana. He always said you could get a job fencing in that hard pan and you could choose your pay, 10 cents a hole or a dollar a day, and anyone who knew the country would take the buck a day. Now, technology has come to the post digger’s rescue. I had a good number of posts to plant for a couple of projects this summer so I borrowed my neighbor’s hydraulic pounder. These machines have been around awhile but are just catching
Craig Kaartinen repaired broken wires on his pasture fence before hauling his cattle to pasture. At least he didn’t have to dig fence post holes. Kaartinen’s pasture west of Eriksdale, Man., near Lake Manitoba is lush because of the heavy rain that fell last month. | CHARLENE KAARTINEN PHOTO on here in the easy digging country. With this outfit, you can take a six to seven inch post and drive it in the ground four feet just by working a hydraulic lever back and forth about a dozen times. It’s a 20 minute job done in a couple of minutes and then you move onto the next one. Our ground is so soft with all the rain we’ve received that you can even drive
blunt railroad ties into the ground. No need to sharpen posts here. I only see one drawback with this hydraulic post pounder, and that’s the way it inflates the cost of a project. No, my neighbour didn’t charge me to borrow it and it only took a couple gallons of gas to run the motor. But it greatly inflated the post cost for the project because it was entirely
too easy to make the corral longer and put the posts closer together. You can bet if I had to dig all the posts by hand, there’d have been a lot fewer posts planted. But if a stronger fence is the price of progress, I guess it could be worse. Ryan Taylor is a rancher, writer and senator in the state legislature from Towner, North Dakota. access=subscriber section=livestock,none,none
FLOODING | CATTLE
DU pastures released to farmers Conservation land | Tenders will help floodinduced forage shortage for cattle producers BY BRIAN CROSS SASKATOON NEWSROOM
A conservation group that normally sets land aside for ducks is making more land available this year to waterlogged cattle farmers. Ducks Unlimited Canada is seeking producer tenders on 48,000 acres. The tenders will help Saskatchewan cattle producers who are struggling with flooded pastures, waterlogged hay fields and possible feed shortages, say DUC officials. Approximately 20,000 acres of DUC land is normally tendered to producers for haying and grazing. This year, to alleviate forage shortages caused by excess moisture and poor growing conditions, the organization will accept tenders on an additional 28,000 acres of DUC land. Brent Kennedy, DUC manager of provincial operations for Saskatchewan, said the land is located throughout the province. Some is located in the southeast around Estevan, Weyburn and Yorkton, where flooding and heavy spring rain have hampered farming operations and limited access to farmland, hay crops and pastures.
Farmers interested in submitting a tender must do so before 1 p.m. July 18. “We understand that many farmers across the province are facing forage shortages this year and (we want) to do what we can to help out,” said Kennedy. “We’ve made similar offers during times of drought and we know from those experiences that in a time of need, access to additional grazing or haying lands can make a difference.” DUC had already tendered 17,000 acres earlier in the year. It decided to expand its 2011 tendered acreage after assessing farmer need and reviewing the condition of its own land holdings. Kennedy said farmers can submit a tender online at yourland.ducks. ca or they can request tender documents by e-mailing foragesk@ ducks.ca. Tender awards are based on the price being offered and the applicant’s proximity to the land being sought. Producers from areas that are experiencing flooding or drought conditions may be given a priority. Ducks Unlimited owns 150,000 acres in Saskatchewan. access=subscriber section=livestock,none,none
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