Technology is your friend. Motion sensor flood lights and security video camera feeding to your home computer might be more effective.

Add a few large barking dogs inside the gate, and you're all set.

To secure ties together, you can use rebar or steel rod from a steel supply shop. Drive them through very tight augured holes. if you expect tires to be run on top of the wood, don't drive the steel flush but leave it proud a few inches and give them nice sharp tops with a small snag grinder.

However, what will be more difficult to knock down (and a more frugal use of ties) would be vertical ties set deep. A fence made up of posts alone. They'd only have to be close enough together to stop an original Mini-Cooper from slipping through and could be as low as a couple of feet, obscured by some small bushes, with a spike in their tops.

I like spikes.

How about hooking up a motion detecting sprinkler controller to a small bell, and making sure to ring an identical small bell every single time you feed those slightly over-hungry dogs?

No juice at the road .. no internet - except Dish (Hughes) .. house is 1/4 mi back into woods. The locals are into dogs chained to trees, not me. Mine have always come to work with me and are/have been house pets.

I cannot do spikes even tho' it may be in my heart. I do not want to become one of them - the people I want to keep out.

Grubby, I thought about vertical, 1/2 size, but actually more work, along with the possibility of looking funky I figure. I have 22 ties so 'waisting' them is not an issue. I may stain them to cover some of that nasty creosote look.

I did use rebar when building raised beds to lap join 6x6 timbers. I drove them about 2' into the soil on the first course and then to attach second course to first. I think for this application I need to come from behind with something stronger/deeper. Rebar would bind the layers together but the 'wall' would be easy to push over without soil (adding an end wall to help hold the soil) or some strong standards behind it driven deep. Weather looks good for a few days, so I will mock it up without fasteners to see what I see...

Cheers. Jim

I realize we're not seeing the whole lay of the land, but I'm not seeing how that's going to stop anyone.

Call for a utility markout so you don't blow anything up, rent an auger to do your post holes, and as grubby mentioned set them vertically. Thru-bolt a ring to each post, thread a length of heavy chain through the rings, and either padlock the ends or have them welded.

I agree with marcinde. How deep is that culvert? Less than 3 foot or so? Easy to ramp across with a 4-wheeler or a wound-up 4x4 pickup. Unless you fence your whole road frontage, you won't stop a determined trespasser.

When in Rome, do as Romans do. I've lived in the country among the local-yocals. Sometimes they don't understand boundaries. Or just don't care. You have to make them realize you mean business - you don't have to chain dogs to the trees, but you have to establish your boundaries in no uncertain terms.

Here's a short story: we used to live back in the woods on 120 acres. We were driving home very late one night and observed a pickup pulled off at the side of the road by our woods. Stopping by the pickup, we heard and saw the headlights of a 4-wheeler moving slowly through our woods. Coon hunters. So we went on home and told our 16-year-old son to drive down through the woods in OUR 4-wheeler, making plenty of noise. DH went back to the pickup parked by the road and waited for the coon hunters, who hightailed it back to their pickup. Ha! Caught 'em red-handed. And they didn't ever come back, after DH gave them a little talking-to.

Don't let them get their bluff in first. Get a German Shepard and sensors and cameras at the gate. And make friends with someone in the sheriff's office.

Don't forget to post a NO TRESPASS / PRIVATE PROPERTY / NO SOLICITING sign out there.

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This post was edited by sasafras on Mon, Dec 29, 14 at 20:58

Thanks all.. Luckily, the (wet) ditch is about 5w x 3d so it's not going to be an easy cross. I doubt they would waist their time if there was the prospect of difficulty. There are easier pickings along the road. ..they're not hidden - you could come to my place with a U-Haul and not bother anyone.

I do have one of those 'hunter's' cams that take IR pics at night ..and a really decent 'dash cam' type gizmo that could easily be rigged to a 12v battery.. Both can be movement activated.

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I got four runs of ties on each side ..pretty much leveled out. The plan is to stager two courses of ties atop this base. I should end up with about a 14" riser. It's winter, so I don't know when I'll get much more done but will come back with more. Stay warm. Jim