The Piggies Have Landed

We finally finished the fencing for two larger pens and can bring the rest of the animals over to the new place.  This afternoon J and I took the trailer over and set it up for the pigs to get in.  Ruby and the babies jumped in the minute we brought the grain out.  They didn't even need a ramp.  Jaws, on the other hand, was pretty skeptical.  We worked on trying to get him in the trailer for at least a half an hour, but it was super cold, getting dark, and the other three pigs were starting to wonder if the trailer was the best place to be.  So, like the old saying "Three pigs in a trailer is worth four in a pen" we decided to leave Jaws and just relocate Ruby and the babies.

J removed the gate in between the two pig pens and brought it back with us so that we could install it in the new pen.  We've been really trying to reuse all that we can and buying gates is expensive, so moving them as we move the animals makes the most sense.  Well, you know how a 2x4 is called a 2x4 but is really a 1 3/4x3 3/4?  It's the same with gates.  I swore up and down that I bought four foot gates.  So when J concreted the wooden posts in the ground, he left four feet six inches of space to hang the gate (figuring that we would need the extra six inches for the hinges and the latch).  I guess the people who make the gates figure that you are going to buy a four foot gate for a four foot opening.  So they make their four foot gates three feet eight inches wide (figuring that you will need the extra four inches for the hinges and the latch).  Suffice it to say, that J swore up and down when he realized this fact.  His beautiful, clean fence posts were in the wrong place!

Now, we couldn't just pull the posts, because remember, we had finished the pens with the exception of the gates.  So the posts were anchoring the entire line of field fence that encircled the pen.  This field fence was attached with four separate tie wires to t-posts every eight feet making up about a 40x40 foot pen.  So, J created a series of blocks that would span the gap between the gate and the post.  In the end, it worked out fine, but it wasn't as beautiful as my hubby would've liked.