Sunday, 24 January 2016

Building a temporary stile in the Orchard

In a couple of days time volunteers arrive on the orchard to start the process of culling trees on the embankment at the edge of our orchard field. I agreed to this work about a week ago, but in the intervening period I had to quickly erect some wire stock fencing across the width of the orchard to ensure the neighbouring sheep don't invade our land and damage the fruit trees. Unfortunately the new stock fence bars the way to the trees on the embankment and the volunteers would be faced with constantly having to climb over the stock fence, most likely damaging it in the process.

Today I spent a few hours building a stile over the stock fence to allow people to climb over safely and without damaging the wire fence. I utilised four round fence posts each about six foot (1,95 metres) tall to form the two sides of a ladder over the wire fence. I cut some robust half round 3 inch wooden fence railing into 60 cm (2 ft) sections to form ladder rungs. It is crudely constructed, using a chain saw, a spanner (wrench) and a hammer with coach bolts and fencing wire holding it all together. However it is a robust construction and should do the job. It weighs around 100 kg (220 lbs), carrying the wood and the tools to the far end of the orchard burnt off loads of calories.

Let's hope people find it useful!

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