THE ZIG CORRAL

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Continue to add courses in this fashion until the corral is five courses (about five feet) high . . . or however high you want it to go. Don't try to level the rails . . . the finished corral will look better-and be more stable-if you'll just follow the lay of the land.

TYING IT ALL TOGETHER

At this point, your enclosure may seem a little rickety, but don't let that worry you. The purpose of the 6" X 6' rail binders and rail blocks mentioned in the "Materials" section above is to tie the whole structure together so that- in the end -each log is held in place by the weight of the entire corral.

Before you can attach the rail binders, it's necessary to trim the projecting end of each overlong log. To do this, first tack a 6"-long board vertically to one row of protruding rail ends (Fig. 5) to serve as a saw guide ... then run your chain saw down the side of the board to trim the row of logs. (Angle the cut slightly, as shown in Fig. 3.)

Now place a 6" X 6' rail binder flat against the sawed-off ends of the five stacked rails. If the fit is good and snug (some extra work with the chain saw may be necessary), nail the board to the rail ends. Cut off any remaining sharp edges (Fig. 3). Continue to trim rail ends and apply binder boards all the way around the corral.

Next, attach 6" X 6 ' "rail blocks" vertically to the sides of the rails at the fence ends (Figs. 3 and 7). Use the outermost blocks as guides to saw off rail projections. (At the walkthrough, you should trim enough wood from the logs to create an 18" gap between the fence and the shed or obstacle next to it.) Notice (Fig. 6) that at the gate opening, one Tail block is omitted on each side of the opening. Except for this, the gateway is finished in exactly the same manner as the fence ends.

Now nail the fence end caps and gate end caps (items 7 and 8 under "Materials" above) to the corral as shown in Figs. 3 and 6.

Finally, spike the corral's four outer posts to the uppermost row of rails at the fence ends and gateway, using 8"-long spikes.

THE GATE

It's possible, of course, to fit your corral with any of several dozen types of gates (see George A. Martin's book for ideas along this line.) I decided to make a simple balance gate of the type described on pages 137-138 of Martin's Fences, Gates, and Bridges. Figure 6 pretty much tells the story. (Notice that my gate opens into the corral.)

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