View from the North 40: I'm hung up on swinging gates

The principles behind installing gates are so simple even I can mess them up.

Gates are essential when you have livestock, pets, small children and other animals that you need to keep confined in or out of a fenced area.

I have a few miles of fence plus several pens and corrals, which are equipped with different types and sizes of gates — wire gates, wooden swinging gates, wooden sliding gates and metal swinging gates of all sizes and weights. Some of them I built and most of them I put in place myself.

I wouldn’t call myself a professional gate hanger-upper — because no one has ac...