An Adventure in Putting Up Fence

About 2 years ago, we bought a large quantity of bundled wooden fence post at an auction. They sat next to the garage all this time. The plan was to use the gas powered auger to drill the holes. Didn't happen. Why?  My husband hurt his back - so bad his work let him go. There they sat.  Finally, we were able to purchase an auger to put on the the tractor last fall.  The intention was to start drilling holes before the ground froze and snow fell.  It was a good intention, but none the less, there they sat.  Then this spring, I put my foot down.  I wanted those posts in the ground - NOW.  We have 6 horses/ponies that need to graze and I was tired of throwing hay when they could be eating grass. 
Finally got the auger put on the tractor and in a matter of hours, we had 122 holes drilled.  It did not go smoothly however.  We broke 5 sheer pins - the first of which scared the crap out of me.  Sounded like a gun shot going off.  We ran over a nest of baby bunnies with the tractor.  That killed 6 of the 8 little ones.  I tried to nurse the 2 and they did pretty well for a few days, but they died as well.  Our son got jabbed in the arm with a Hawthorne needle.  We treated it, but it still ended up with a slight infection.  He's fine now.  This was on a Sunday.  On Monday, my husband had to deliver a Hay Hut to Cleveland, Ohio so I stayed home and set fence posts.  I did 34 by myself until I just couldn't shovel and scrape anymore dirt.  My arms had had enough.  The next day, it rained - all day.  The post holes filled with water.  We decided to wait a day and let the water drain out.  It didn't drain out very much.  We filled the holes anyway.  The corners got cement and everything else got lots of dirt. 
It was time to string the wire.  Over 7,000 feet of it.  Each post gets 5 staples and 5 strands of high tensile wire.  We went thru 2.5 coils of wire, 25 springs and 25 rachets and over 100 crimps. 

They are happy horses now.  We still a short section of fence to put up but that will happen in a few days after we get done with some hay baling.