And Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, Heeere’s Bruce!

Posted on by Julia

August 16, 2026

In Bruce’s own words and pictures, the removal of the pig pen fence from the start of the project to today.

Where the entry gate was, but the right-hand gate post was broken off before we bought the place. This small paddock includes what we think is an 8-place pig feeder, and a small shed with a gate for a door.

There’s the post, on the ground, and where it was mounted in concrete in the foreground. Last year, this southern border, along with the western border, produced a lot of good blackberries. This year, not so much, so we’re OK with tearing it all down.

From the west (the direction of the house), the shed is hard to see behind all the brush. By the end of the project, this will all be clear, and I will probably take down one or two trees, as they’re sickly and badly leaning.

Here, I’ve cleared a lot of the brush from the southern and eastern borders with my Kaiser blade, and then mowed the area down. This makes it easier to get close to the t-posts so I can remove them.

With three t-posts removed from the southern border, I found that the southeastern corner post, another big wooden one, had also snapped off at the base. It was hard to see before, with all the brush. Now I’ve pulled that secton of fence out of the way, and cleared a lot of that brush.

The gatepost, mostly cleared of brush.

The corner post, also mostly cleared.

The “pig feeder” (does anyone need one of these?), with a bit of the ever-present wild salad greens. Fortunately, we know the right dressing to use with these greens.

With the southern fence gone, I can more easily get the tractor in here, should be able to lift the feeder, move it somewhere else. And maybe find out what’s been living in it, and under it.

The tractor, with the loader bucket off, but the backhoe in place for counterweight as I use the loader to pull out posts.

Some brush cleared from both sides of the eastern border, and the southern border mowed. I’ve pulled the fence, including the gatepost and corner post, off the the side. We may end up using the fencing material for garden trellises.

Looking along the remainder of the eastern border.

It’s a little hard to see the fence, though the wooden posts are readily visible. I need to pull more staples from those posts, fully separate the fence from them.

The northern and western borders are still pretty messy, and there’s a lot of junk growing around the gate to the shed.

Now the eastern border is clearer.

Most posts removed, brush cut, and area mowed.

I have a manual t-post puller, but found the posts here to be too well entrenched. So I use the bracket you can see on that t-post, attached to some chain hanging from the loader. I had been using a ratchet strap, but it tore. The chain should hold up better.

Close-up of the loader, chain, and bracket. The bracket fits around the t of the t-post, and “catches” on the bump-outs on the flat side. Ideally, anyway.

And this post is out! Some came out fairly easily, making me think the manual puller would have worked for them. Others took the full power of the loader. And some refused to budge. I may pour water around the problem posts, to loosen the ground. Or I may dig a little.

This post has the roots of a small tree or bush (privet?) wrapped around it, and caught up in the fence.

More of the wild salad greens. After working around this stuff for a while, I thoroughly wash with Tecnu, to neutralize the toxin.

It’s hard to tell there was a paddock surrounded by brush!

I’ve cleared some of the northern border at this point. It was harder to reach the fence there, so I could snip off the clips holding the fence to the posts. I’ve also cleared up some of the brush along the western border, so soon I should be able to remove the fence on that side. With all the fence free, I can roll it up, put it somewhere for future use.

24 thoughts on “And Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, Heeere’s Bruce!”

  1. Hats/caps off to Bruce! This was an incredible amount of work, and he did a great job. I well remember the pig feeder troughs from my grandfather’s pig pen. The last time I was out there, I really wanted to bring it home with me, since it had been abandoned for years by then. My dad’s father raised pigs, mostly out of necessity since that was during the Great Depression, and one year, Dad did as well and they went into our freezer for the winter meat. It is always interesting to me that there are these flash-backs to the past in various ways.

    Once more, you both deserve praise for all you do to work with the natural world.

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    1. In my recent posts, I mentioned Bruce’s hard work jokingly. My comments only gave a small part of his work.

      I felt Bruce deserved his own post; he has worked very hard to remove the fence.

      Bruce is partly doing this work because I wanted more T-Post.

      I am not sure what we are going to do with the pig feeder. What were you planning to do with the one you hoped to bring home?

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      1. It was when we were still in Texas, and I probably had some idea of planting flowers in it. I had to let go of a lot of things from “home” when we moved here. Now, I am focused on passing on things. You need some T posts? Fencing? We have plenty to spare.

        I always thought while you add humor to Bruce’s work that was clear he was indeed working. I admire you both, and hope you can carry it on as long as you want to. My dad carried it on until 88–my mom, not that long. LOL

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      2. When we first moved here, I talked to Bruce about placing the feeder near the road and planting flowers in it—vines of some sort growing from the top and flowers from the bottom. After the two major floods we experienced, I gave up on that idea. After filling the raised beds with dirt, I also realized how much soil and water it would take to grow anything in the feeder.

        Bruce enjoys my humor as much as I enjoy his. He loves making me laugh until I am ROTFL, with my sides hurting and tears in my eyes.

        Since my blog is a diary of sorts, I wanted to share the reign of destruction from his perspective. 😆

        We hope to keep going for a long time as well. We are trying to get everything set up to make things easier when we get older. The raised beds are part of this plan.

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    1. He is loving the tractor.

      The floor in the shed is dirt. Some of the roof beams are partially rotted. It would take a lot of work to make it a she-shed. I tell Bruce that he could make moonshine in it! 🤣🤣🤣 For some reason, he says no way! B

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Published by Julia

I am a retired software solutions architect. I have been married to my husband, Bruce, for over forty years. We went full-time RVing for 3.5 years and saw much of the United States. After deciding to stop RVing, we bought a ranch house halfway up a hill on five acres. After Bruce and I talked about names for our five acres, we settled on Blackberry Homestead as a homage to the wild blackberries on the hill. We are working on creating our homestead. I love cooking and enjoy sharing recipes. I am also an artist, and I’ll share my current projects. Gardening and reading are my favorite hobbies.