Early Spring before everything died and it became evident that we have been over run by cheat grass!

I have been busy and not keeping everyone abreast of the activity at our abode.  We put an add on Craigslist a month ago to get rid of our ram.  We had someone call yesterday and they came today and picked him up!  Not only that they wanted a ewe.  So we sold them the original Crazy ewe.  We had been talking about getting rid of her any way as she was teaching her babies to be just as crazy/scared as she was.  We sold #2 and #3 sheep for the year.  This is very nice.

I spent the day mowing weeds.  We rented a tractor with a mower on the back (last time as our tractor will be here in mid-August) for today.  I hit it early and started mowing at 7:00 am, didn’t finish until 5:30 pm.  I did stop for lunch and I spotted the people when they came to buy Oreo so I helped load the sheep.  I had to pick up both sheep and put them in the horse trailer.  They were not going in on their own.  There is an old sheep ramp over by the loading pen, but it looks like it needs new boards and maybe some welding done on it before it could be used.  Eventually, I am sure that will be put on the list of need to do projects.  Not yet, I have other things first.  The mowing made me realize how much cleaning up is left to do.  It was amazing the amount of things I kept running over!  When I mowed the old ram pasture it was like mowing a park, no stumps, rocks, old fencing stuff, more rocks, equipment or trash laying hidden in the tall weeds.  I will start making each area just as clean as the ram pasture.  I am going to start picking up the rocks and making a new pile.  I want to use some on the back hillside for landscaping so I have a use for them.

Sarah and I went out and got the chicken yard sprinklers working and hooked up.  We have them on a little manual  90 minute timer you just turn and it shuts the water off.  I hooked up their auto outside waterer also.  Just in case they get locked in the yard.  Since my new Chicken Butler is not here yet.

Saturday I finished the orchard fence.  I still have one gate to install but all the fencing is done.  One more check mark for the Summer list.  I will get it all done.  We moved the sheep and horses to the orchard pasture.  They seem to be getting along except occasionally the horses will harass the new babies.  They chase them around the orchard.  Momma does not like this at all.  The horses get tired of it eventually and give up.

Horses in the upper portion of the orchard, basically rocks with a little dirt over them.  Dry year round, this is a good thing since the rest of the orchard is self watering.

I have not made any new progress on organizing the tool shed (old house).  Too much time spent fencing.  I still need to fence in the barn lot and rip out the old head feed panels for the cows (the sheep can just jump through them to get out of the barn lot.).  Annmarie’s father was feeding cows through the fence and I will need to take those out and repair that section.  I have not even started to repair the back half of the orchard fence.  I mowed next to the fence today and could see all the problems that need to be corrected.  I can get away with doing very little for now but by next year I am going to have to rework a large chunk of the existing fence.

My help got hired back to his job so now the bridge has to wait for a month.  Glad he is employed again, sad the bridge is going to take a little longer.  I will get over it as it will still be finished by the end of Summer and it was on the list of Summer projects.  I will still meet my goal.

Annmarie and Sarah are going out and working with the horses first thing in the morning (0630).  Yes, that is really early.  I have to agree, since I was up already I worked on the tool shed.  I wanted to get the shelving unit installed on the wall.  There was a 48 inch space and the shelving unit was 48 inches wide.  Did I mention that this was going to go in a corner or that I only took one measurement?  I installed the 2×4 onto the wall that the unit would sit on and attempted to get the unit in place.  Not happening, it was too big.  I had to move the old Dewalt radial arm saw out of the way and start with the unit about 14 inches higher than it needed to be.  I beat the unit back in with a large rubber mallet then attempted to shove it down.  No go.  It would not budge.  I used a four foot chunk of 2×4 against the ceiling and the top of the cabinet and got it to move down about three inches before it got stuck again.  I went out and got a eight foot 2×4 and some scraps of wood to put on top of the cabinet as I levered it down with the eight foot lever.  I got it in place.  It held with no screws!!  I did add screws and another 2×4 to the top so I could screw from inside the shelf into the 2×4.  Annmarie came out to check on me and I had been at it over three hours.  So I am making progress on the tool shed, it is just taking time.  I am going to build the table top next so I can mount my drill, sander and scrollsaw.  It will be made out of 2×4 on each shelf section, then a full sheet of OSB then about 2-3 chunks of one inch plywood (scrap) it will be 4×8 feet long.  Should be pretty sturdy.

Baby twin boys born last night

We had more sheep babies again last night.  Annmarie came in the house to get me because one of the mothers was worrying at the side of the barn.  The baby sheep can get under the wooden rails.  I will fix this when I do the barn repair.  So we went up there and new babies!!  There were twin baby boys from one of our two very friendly ewes.  Cute little buggers.

Baby chicks not enjoying their enforced outside time.

Original chicken ramp, one loose board on the chicken landing.

For the afternoon Sarah and I cut down all the thistles in the barn lot and ram pasture.  Sarah did most of the work, I was the quality control and difficult to reach chopper.  While she did that I worked on a new chicken ramp for the babies.  I have been needing this for a while and the babies are old enough to come out if they can be convinced it is safe.  So I just threw them all out of the coop after I finished it.  They need some encouragement.  Sarah had to catch them and put them back in the coop at dark.

New chicky ramp.  I even put hardware cloth on the ramp so  they could get a grip when going up and down the ramp.  Heck, I even cut angles with my hand skilsaw.

Porch is starting to pile up with stuff that needs to disappear.

I went back out to the shed today and decided that I needed some peg board up on the wall.  I measured for the board and cut it and all the sundry underlying supports.  The problem with this is I changed my mind about how I was going to organize the space.  I started moving the shelving units all over the place.  I even took one six foot tall 2 ftx4 ft and made it into 2 three feet tall shelves next to each other.  I am going to take a large piece of plywood and place it across the top to make a work surface.  I can mount my drill, sander and scroll saw to this table and actually use them!!!  Very cool concept.  I may even hook up all three to my shop vac so I can have a dust collection system going.  I will need to move my shop vac out of the house next week anyway.  I have the duct work for a dust collection system already.

I did manage to hit my shop light and break out the bulb.  So I may have to adjust the location of this light and definitely need to raise it.  Of course with no light there will be no nocturnal progress made on the shed.

New work bench, needs a new top but you can see how it going to work out, my scroll saw is already claiming a space.  The far wall on the left side of the window is going to be pegboard.

It is better now even with being torn up.  I have taken out five bags and one box of trash.  The trash guys are in for a big surprise. that wooden shelving unit next to the plastic buckets is going to be mounted on the wall to the right of the window. I just need to add in a bottom and top support.

  I also ended up moving my pegboard to a separate wall and am going to move an old cabinet over to its spot and mount it to the wall.  I did remove an old work top/shelving unit that was original in the old house when I cleaned it out the first time.  It is just too tall to work on.

I got the deal of the century today.  I have been talking to the scrap metal yard owner about saving woven wire fencing for me.  I picked up 450# of new looking woven wire (I mean this stuff is brand new, no rust, bright metal color).  It is amazing stuff.  I cannot believe that anyone would rip it out.  I would be good for another 20-30 years!  I just looked up the fence type and I ended up with almost 600 feet of fencing or $0.167/foot.   An amazing price!  I asked for another pickup load and I will have my fencing needs met.  Now if only it would build itself…

Well we are slowly gaining ground.  Another raccoon off to the big blue sky.  We ended up with another family it looks like, so until they are all gone, then the chickens will keep disappearing.  This happened two years ago, but I happened to catch the family outside during the daylight and capped six at once so I got ahead of the game that year, doesn’t look like that is going to happen this time.

I did go out and lock the chickens up in the electrified chicken yard.  I also spent another hour organizing my tool room in the old house.  It was starting to really get out of control.  I was having a difficult time finding tools, so I figured it was time to organize.  I went out and bought a bunch of see through containers and am currently organizing the room.  I hung some stuff on the walls today and added in another shelf.  I may move one of the shelving units.