An old page that shows some of what went into building the park...

Trivia fact: over $3,000 in treated wooden posts went into constructing the fence. That doesn't include the fencing, staples, brace wire, gates, mulch, gravel, steel tee-posts, and hundreds of other things that were needed prior to opening.

Spring, 2008, We're clearing up the fence rows in preparation for the new fence.

July 10th, To allow crossing the creek (especially w/ the tractor), I picked up a culvert at Carter Lumber that I had to special order because it is larger than what they normally stock. It's one of those black plastic corrugated ones, 48" dia x 20' long.

It is pretty heavy. I couldn't pick up one end of it. They used a fork lift to put it on the trailer and I used the tractor to pull it off and over parallel to the spot I had picked out in the creek.
Then I spent a few hours cleaning up the banks and creek bottom so that the culvert would lay nicely, then rolled it in place by hand.

After that I cleaned up some more of the wood.

As of August 15th, the wood is pretty well cleaned up although there are a few stumps in the fence row that I need to at least trim down flush with the ground. I may decide to get at least a couple of the big ones ground up; not sure yet.

I pretty well cleaned up the debris from an old dilapidated loafing shed that we tore down and next is to brush hog the place and trim down a few stumps so we can see to lay out the fences....

Update August 19th: Brush-hogged! Stumps cut out except for the ones I hope to get ground down so they don't interfere with mowing or the fence. There is one big old tree trunk laying in the NW corner that I will cut up eventually; it is too big for the tractor to drag, but it isn't particularly in the way, so I'll leave it for now. Initial layout of the fences marked with little fluorescent flags (except the property perimeter fence) to show the parking area, the small dog park, the commons area, and the large dog park. I checked the parking area to make sure people wouldn't be constantly backing into the neighbor's mailbox and today after work I tested it out. I'll let it be for a while and come back to it to make sure I'm still satisfied with it.
It doesn't exactly match up with the drawing, but the drawing didn't show the locations of trees and the creek exactly. I simplified some of the lines to eliminate unneccesary turns for easier construction now and easier mowing later.

Fifteen stumps are ground out now.

I ordered the fence posts mid-week and they came in today, September 26th. It is taking several trips to the lumber company to get them all here. Today I moved all four bundles of sixteen treated 6"x6"x10' posts and one bundle of forty-eight treated 4"x4"x10'posts and tomorrow at daybreak I go get the rest of the bundles. They are loading them into the truck by picking up a bundle with a forklift, positioning it at the end of the truck bed, then shoving it in with the bucket on a tractor. To unload them, I'm driving around the fence lines and pulling the posts off where they will go. After I get the rest of the posts, I'll rent a 3-point auger and my nephew and I will start putting the posts in.

Update October 3rd: Instead of a 3-point auger, I rented a "dingo", a small track-mounted machine that you walk behind. It has an arm on the front like a little front-end loader that can take any of a number of attachments, including an auger. So now all the post holes are drilled with the exception of a few for the "airlock" entrances and a couple of others here and there. 131 drilled. Each hole has a post in it and we are in the process of aligning the posts and tamping them in with a spud bar. So far 61 are tamped in.

October 18th: All the wooden posts are now in except for probably four along the two creek crossings (the Large Dog Park), which I'll have to dig by hand since the Dingo can't handle much of a ground slope without tipping over. All of the posts around the entrances/exits are in. There are a number around the Large Dog Park on the bottom ground that I had to add stone to because the holes were so wet, and they still need tamping, but for now Jim and I are concentrating on getting the Small Dog Park finished. Today we added corner bracing and we are about halfway done with that. Hopefully we'll get that finished up tomorrow and start installing tee posts. Last night we picked up a couple rolls of Sheep & Goat Fence and I cleaned Tractor Supply out of staples, 9 gauge brace wire, and tee-post clips (for wiring the fence to the tee-posts).

The Dingo is a very big improvement over using a three-point auger, but for these holes (12" diameter x 4' deep) we found that one can't just drill once and be done. It takes about 4 or more shots, cleaning off the auger and around the hole between each shot because the weight and volume of dirt overwhelms the dingo. It gets so it can't pick up the dirt without tipping forward. I think there is a good chance that with a 9" diameter x 3' hole it might be able to drill in one shot and that would be a LOT quicker. But, we are done with that now.

October 24th: All of the woven wire is on except for one short piece about 20' long near the gates. Hopefully Jim and I will get that on in the morning. Then the extra strands above the woven wire, four small gates (two entrance, two exit) and one large service gate and we'll have an enclosed park! It seems like the extra strands should go quickly, but we'll see.

October 25th: Jim and I added the last piece of woven wire today, then made a good start with the three strands above the woven wire, running all three stands around half of the park from the exit to the service gate, except that our spool of aluminum wire gave out just a few feet shy of making it to the service gate on the last strand, so I'll have to get some more and splice onto the end. Then we need to do from the service gate to the entrance and around the entrance/exit, add the gates, and we'll have it all enclosed.

November 1st: All three strands are now on all the way around. There are a couple of places where I need to add some spacers to keep them at the correct height (a dip or rise between wooden posts). Tonight I picked up a couple truckloads of sticks and tomorrow I hope to measure for the gates so I can get them on order.
January 10th, 2009: The gates are all hung, although I still need to fine-tune the springs. As it is now, if the gate is opened more than about halfway, they stay open. And a stiff breeze will open them. Today, I picked up all but one of the signs from Mid-Ohio Graphics. I'm still working out the text for the "Park Rules" sign. So many details to work out...I'm waiting on insurance quotes, stuff from my attorney, stuff from my accountant, stuff from....