Fences are Expensive.  Wood that has to be cut up anyway? Well, that has no cash outlay at least.  The fence by the highway is an interesting mixture; the north end is composed of old snow fence and a brushpile outside of it; the center section is composed of increasingly solid brush piles of pine/spruce/other slow rotting wood.  This is carefully stacked so it is no more than four feet wide at the base, tied together using its own weight and branches, and if the pointy ends stick out they stick out towards the road.  The last section, which has drawn admiring comments, is a modified zig-zag composed of thinned out sugar maple saplings.   Modified because I wired them to T-posts for a five foot high fence. None of the sections are especially fun to climb over, part of the point.  It’s all a lot cheaper than seven hundred plus feet of fence would be.

More interesting is that the fence actually does cut wheel noise and there has been a noticeable increase in the health of the plants behind it.  Apparently, the reduced light level is more than countered by the removal of the constant scouring by road debris.  Nor does the fence appear to block animal movement, it was specifically designed not to, actually. *

In any case, I hope to add a new section.  Theoretically, spruce splits.  Whether it splits by hand in long enough sections to be turned into rails or palisades?  We’ll see, I’ve got about 160 feet to play with…

*I have other more effective ways to control munching critters, and no desire to cause roadkill.