Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above

Don't fence me in.

No I've not been listening to Cole Porter, but there are worse ways of spending your time in my opinion. Instead I've been making Split-Rail Fences. Or approximations of them for my 10mm AWI figures.

There are many different kinds of split-rail fence, and you can find more about them here in Wikipedia. I came across an example of one in the open air museum in Helsinki last year. What I didn't realise is that the basic idea was that they could be built without expensive and difficult to obtain ironmongery in remote regions. I've gone for the simplest one to construct, the classic zig-zag form.

As you can see the basic materials are lollipop sticks and matchsticks (without heads) both of which you can buy in the craft sections of retail stores. Or if you are a smoker with a sweet tooth, you can recycle them.  Total length is about 2 metres so over a mile scaled down in game terms. Two lolly sticks stuck edge to edge for the bases. I suppose I could have cut the ends of the sticks off but it seemed too much bother for not a lot of gain.I used Vallejo Deck Tan to paint the matchsticks. I usually use this for bare wood as it gives that grey hue that timber goes when exposed to air over time.

The final result is not ideal. I'd like to have had more 'layers' but the matchsticks are hard to split evenly (with my skills) and the different sections don't join up but they'll do. Now to think of a way to make corn fields.

Post Script: when I showed my wife she said if I was so keen to build fences there were some life sized ones that need attention. Schoolboy error!