For the longest time I put off finishing up the east side of the chicken yard fence. There were two reasons for this. One, there was firewood all along the fence line that would've made getting up to the fence line difficult, and two, there were more important areas to get fencing up, since the east side of the chicken yard still had some chicken wire fencing. Well after the last session of fencing that completed the west end of the perimeter fence, I had been getting my hands on whole panels and the whole panels ended up being way cheaper than getting the individual pieces. Also it would typically take lesser time to put up the whole panel compared to the individual boards and pickets.
Previously, I managed to get the remaining posts sunk in the ground for the east side of the chicken yard fence when I was putting posts in the ground for the west side of the perimeter fence. Since I was getting things in bulk to some degree, I figured I may as well get the few posts to complete the chicken yard fence. Anyway, when I did get the latest batch of fence panels, I ended up staging them along the chicken yard fence line temporarily while I wrapped up things on the perimeter fence. As can be seen in the picture, the last panel that goes up against the house ended up being too long. Obviously I would have to cut that panel down to get it mated up properly so I decided to start at this point and work towards the existing fence. We had already taken time to make note of the meeting points of the ends of each panel on the posts so I was able to determine that we will be more likely to have excess on the panels that'll require trimming versus having panels that are too short. When we do get to the last panel where it'll mate up to the existing fence, we will end up having to trim things down to mate up to the fence. We took time to get the right side of the fence panel lined up dead center with the post so I can then take time to determine just how much panel I needed to trim and even determine what angles I need to make the cuts in order for the left side of the panel to mate up almost perfectly to the side of the house. This really wasn't that bad as the saw made fast work of the wood and the nailgun finished things up by securing the panel to the posts with very little gap between the end of the panel and the side of the house. Now this is where things get interesting. If you remember the problems we had with the western perimeter fence due to the grade of the land, that same problem manifested itself here as well, probably worse due to a steeper grade right at this point. What this meant was a batch of fuckery that would persist all the way to the last fence panel since the grade caused me to have to cut the panels at odd angles to get the panels to mate up properly while following the grade of the ground. The next panel really needed to be cut to get the angles right enough so the bottom of the panel sat nicely along the ground. What this also meant was the idea that I would have to attach pieces of 2x4's to the posts to widen the available surface area for the 2x4's on the panels to be able to take a nail through to be able to secure them in place. Despite the apparent ugliness of this install, it had to be done. The following panels weren't too bad but still bad enough due to the cuts that had to be made to get them hung. Again I had to attach pieces of 2x4's to the rest of the posts to be able to have anchor points for the ends of the panels. Proper coverage to the ground is doubly important due to the fact that baby chickens are roaming the yard and we can't have birds that are able to squeeze under the fence and escape, much more so any varmints being able to do the same to get into the chicken yard to grab a chicken or two. As stated in the beginning, the last panel would have to be trimmed to get it to mate up with the already existing fence since the spacing was made a little narrow just to be safe. Better to have to trim excess than to have gaps due to the panels being too short. As before, extra 2x4's were used for providing anchor points where needed. With minor trimming I was able to get the last panel mated up between the new and the old fencing and get everything secured on that front. I did have to use some small pieces of old trimming to fill a couple of gaps to get the junction point completely filled in but this was pretty minor. After getting this done I moved on to the inside of the chicken yard to dismantle the old chicken wire fencing since it was obviously no longer needed. I pulled the fencing free and rolled it up and staged it with the scrap metal can to be hauled out on the next scrap run. Despite having taken time to get the panels trimmed so they would mate to the ground properly, after looking from the inside out, there were small gaps that I wasn't really satisfied with so I had to cut some extra board to run along the bottom to get a redundant covering of the bottom. Now on a side note, another reason I was hesitant to finish the fence was because of how I had been setting up the fence previously. Since this was a more interior section of fence and not a perimeter fence, I was only using two 2x4s to hang the pickets between posts. The extra strength wasn't needed since there would be another run of fence that would be making up the eastern perimeter fence. Now, since I had been adopting the use of panels all over until further notice, I would have to accept the fact that this one junction point would look awkward due to the two board fence mating up to the three board fence in the remainder of the fence run. Again, extra pieces of 2x4's helped solve this problem in getting things secured properly. As for aesthetics, with the goofy angled cutting and trimming, the support boards on the inside are hardly the focal point of the overall appearance of the fence.
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