Our four acre lot and all those around us are zoned residential, but most of the land adjoining the neighborhood is still used for grazing cattle. It turns out that, at least in this county, the burden is on the homeowner to keep cattle out rather than the burden being on the rancher to keep their cattle in. Everyone who runs cattle nearby tries their best to control their cattle, but we and our neighbors had to put up about 2000 feet of fence in this particular area at our own expense. We all pitched in the money for materials and several of us provided the labor to put it up. I had never played real cowboy before so it was an interesting experience for me. Stringing the wire turns out to be pretty easy ... the hard part is driving the stakes, especially into the mixture of rocks and soil that passes for ground out here.
This fellow in the picture is the one who organized the fence party.
We rigged a way to spool out the barbed wire from the back of my truck. Thankfully the rocks weren't too bad in this area and I didn't lose any part of the undercarriage or blow a tire.
Here is another neighbor who guided the spool as I drove.
