Fencing, fencing, fencing, fencing, fencing, ginormous spider, bees, and, oh yeah, night shifts

I've had the past several days off from work and spent most of this time at the ranch working on fencing.  I'm doing it all myself to save money, so, regardless of the condition of the ground (i.e. wet, dry, sandy, clay, etc), it's hard work.  I'm okay with that, though, since I'm working towards an awesome goal and, in my mind, the less money I can spend on equipment, the more I can spend on bison.

Fence posts,...
...more fence posts,...
...and even more fence posts.  The three wooden posts in this photo are intended to be used for a double h-brace.  For this kind of fencing it's always good to put some kind of bracing at the tops and bottoms of hills. 
On the same subject, I just finish fabricating four custom gate hinges for the main front gate.  They are designed to fit my somewhat larger sized square steel tube gates to standard 3/4" gate bolts. 


While I'm on the subject of fabricating, I also just finished and installed an aluminum truck box on the F-250.  It sure isn't a work of art and probably wasn't worth the money and effort I put in to it, but I did gain experience welding aluminum and now have the equipment I would need to do any future aluminum welding. Also, it is nice to be able to have a place to lock and not have to worry about things disappearing if I want to use the bathroom or buy coffee at a gas station. 


I'm starting 12 hour night shifts at work this week, so I've switched my daily routine to being awake from about 3:00PM to 7:00AM.  It's been interesting working at night on the ranch.  I wear a headlamp and try to stay focused on my work to keep from becoming sleepy or disoriented.  Weird things can still happen, though, like my encounter with a gigantic spider the other night.  It was probably around 1:00AM and I was loading more of the 10 foot long wooden fence posts from a large pile at the center of the ranch into the back of my pickup truck.  It was a clear night, but hot and windy and the monotony of it all was starting to affect me.  Suddenly, this massive spider scurried towards me on top of the log pile.  Legs included, the spider must have been at least five inches across.  Had he run out of sight I would have thought I imagined the entire thing, but, instead, he just sat there for about a minute.  Too bad I left the camera in the scamp.  The whole experience was surreal to say the least.

On another surreal note, some animal decided to try to chew though one of the filled plastic gas cans I had been storing.  I've never seen this before.   

 

I finally got to check the bee hives.  One is doing extremely well and two others are in okay condition.  The forth is without a queen and on it's way out. 


Lastly, the tadpoles I posted about earlier have finally grown legs and struck out on there own.  I'm not sure what species these are, but they are currently about the size of marbles.

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