One of the first things happening at Acre13 in 2026 is going to be putting up a fence.
Not because I particularly want to build a fence.
And not because I want to spend a pile of money buying lumber to build one.
Actually, quite the opposite.
I’ve got about 190 feet of road frontage on the first acre, and once I start thinning that area out, I’m going to have thousands of small trees to deal with. A lot of them are three- and four-inch diameter or smaller.
So I’m starting to think:
Why not build the fence out of the trees I’m already taking down?
That’s becoming a bit of a theme around Acre13.
Instead of clearing something and hauling it away, I’m trying to figure out whether I can turn it into something useful.
A Scandinavian-style fence
The fence style I’m looking at is a traditional Scandinavian round-pole fence, often associated with styles such as gärdesgård or skigard.
The basic idea is pretty simple.
You’ve got upright round posts, with smaller poles running diagonally between them. The diagonal pieces cross between the uprights, creating a surprisingly strong structure without requiring a lot of hardware or conventional lumber.
And that’s what caught my attention.
It looks like it belongs in the woods.
It doesn’t look like I went to a building supply store and bought 200 feet of pressure-treated fence panels.
And, if things work out the way I’m hoping, a lot of the material will actually come from the land itself.
I’ve got thousands of small trees that will need to be cleared anyway. Three- and four-inch trees and smaller seem to be right in the range of material used for this kind of fence.
So rather than seeing those trees as something that needs to be disposed of, I’m looking at them as a pile of potential building material.
The bylaws are surprisingly straightforward
I’ve also gone through the local bylaws.
All 53 pages of them.
And I can tell you one thing I’ve learned from this process: owning rural property doesn’t mean you can necessarily just build whatever you want wherever you want.
Fortunately, the fence itself is pretty straightforward.
I’ve checked the bylaws, and I don’t need a permit to build this type of fence. Between adjoining properties, I can put it right on the boundary line.
Zero setback.
Right on the line.
There are still requirements to deal with along the road, including the various utility easements, so the road frontage is a little different. I’ve already got a couple of posts roughly located, and I’m somewhere around 35 or 40 feet back from the centerline of the road.
That should put me past most of the easement issues, but I’m still going through the details.
I also need to double-check the maximum fence height along the road.
Because apparently there has to be something in those 53 pages that makes this slightly more complicated.
It’s not really about keeping things in
The fence will eventually run along the left side of the property, then behind the two acres adjoining my driveway, and from there start working its way toward the back.
And this isn’t really about keeping livestock in.
It’s about keeping people out.
We’ve had people walking down the pathway and then wandering around on the property.
I don’t wander around other people’s property.
I figure it’s not unreasonable to expect the same courtesy.
So I’ll put up a fence.
Not an ugly fence.
Not a giant KEEP OUT! fence.
Just something that clearly defines the property and gives people a reason to stop before they start wandering around.
And if I can build it mostly from trees that I’m already clearing, even better.
That’s the kind of thing I want to do at Acre13.
Use what we’ve got.
The land needs to be cleared anyway.
The fence needs to be built anyway.
So why not make the two things work together?
I’ve got the post-hole auger coming, with six- and ten-inch bits, and once the clearing starts, I’ll have a much better idea of exactly what kind of material I’ve got to work with.
Then we’ll see how this idea looks when it gets out of my head and onto the property.
Because around here, those two things don’t always look exactly the same.
Good fences make good neighbors.
Well… that’s the theory anyway.
And with all those uprights over a kilometre stretch, I’ll be investing in a post hole auger.
