Keeping out the cattle

I've finally come to realise that it'll be better to have a fence and gates - however little I might want them - than to have to deal with the consequences of the local cattle getting loose (as they so often do) and coming into the garden.

So the first step was to locate some railway sleepers - in my view, far the best material for making gateposts. All that creosote should give them a good (second) lifetime.

These are in fact Spanish ones, and, according to the dealer who sells them, they are made of pine. As each one weighs about 60kg I suppose I should be grateful they weren't in fact oak as the now-unobtainable French ones normally were.



Once again the new trailer has been very useful. The sleepers are 2.6m long and although they overhang a bit I had no trouble getting them home from Rodez.

The next step is to dig some holes. I intend to find a man with a digger for this. The ground is far too stony for me to manage with a pickage, and I'm hoping to put about 75cm of sleeper into the ground.