Second reason to paint/stain fence, water protection.

Herbicides are my friend.

Yesterday was a day to catch up on items around the farm.  I do still need to move hay but we had so much rain the night before that I need to let the hay dry out a little more before sticking it into the barn.  I happened to glance over at the small part of our front fence that is painted and noticed the amazing job of rain repellent the Sherwin Williams stain we used was doing.  This is definitely another reason to paint the fence.  I love herbicides!  They make an intolerable job of weed control doable for one person.  As you can see my weeds are wilting and dying, this is a good thing. 

Creek crossing after bull tore out all the paneling and made a cow highway.

My nephew cleaned out the other hay room. He removed all the old boards and restacked the straw near the door.  We spent the afternoon fixing fences. Annmarie wanted to turn the boy sheep (edible herd) onto the back hill side. We discussed the benefit of animal weed depridation and I was all for the assist.  But first we had to repair the creek crossing the bull ripped up. I have a wire spanning the creek way up in the air and hang panels down that I lift in the late winter before the spring runoff. He was wading into the stream and lifting the panels with his horns and crawling under them. 

To thwart this behavior we drove a steel rod four feet into the bank on each side parallel to the ground and attached a removable steel cable. Now I can clip the bottom of the panels to the cable to prevent lifting and remove the cable before spring. Pure genius!  We we’d to re stretch a short chunk of fence near the crossing as one of the cows had torn it up. On the way out of the field we fixed the little human gate. Both hinges were upright so the bull would lift it off and escape. We re drilled and turned the upper hinge. We also fixed a stretch of fence by the apple tree. 

We then went to the far upper corner of the property and added woven wire to two stretched gates so the sheep could not get through. I need a sixteen and 18 foot gate to replace those. We re stretched a third gate and went to the upper pasture and clipped in panels in the creek bed so the ram could not sneak through and get to the ewes.  It fixed all the big outstanding issues we have with the fence currently. I am seriously considering a fence across the narrow part of the driveway. It would stay open most of the time. It would help immensely when moving animals. We will move the boys tomorrow.  

New and improved cow resistant crossing.

Zeke is a real farm dog now. He learned today to ride on the flatbed empty and with hay. It was really the last thing he needed to check off on his bucket list. We did three loads of hay today, 100 bales approximately 4 ton. Zeke ate another five voles. Annmarie thought sprout had chased him off his food, I just think he is not that hungry. 

While unloading the second load my left knee started bothering me as I was climbing the hay pile with a bale in tow. I finally just gave up and had the nephew climb the pile. I did the loading and unloading. I scheduled more help for Friday. I figured two teenage boys can tear it up. I will drive and work on the new feeder in the barn while they unload the hay. 

After lunch we went to the metal scrap yard, my favorite place. I picked up about 1000 feet of woven wire, two cow panels slightly abused, two nine foot long culverts (precut and waiting for me!), a few horseshoes and some chain. I ran out of space on the trailer. Next week I am going to rent a backhoe to finish digging out the irrigation ditch. 

Zeke decided to be some help moving the sheep after first trying it his way!  Eventually, he listened to me and five minutes later the sheep were where they needed to be.  Sometimes I think he doesn’t think I am giving commands unless there is yelling and swearing involved. This is not a PG-13 show!  I will never be able to take him to a sheep dog competition. 

Day 2 hay stacking.

Well day 2 is completed. Not only can my entire body now talk back to me, I have more blisters to prove it.  I started the morning of day two with two blisters and two bandaids covering those blisters.  The cloth bandaids worked wonders and those blisters were protected.  Now the other three I acquired on my right hand were not protected.  The one on the inside of my finger where the hay hook rubbed tore open.  I will now need five bandaids on Monday to pick up hay.  My helper for the day was a young man who needed some money.  He had never picked up or moved hay before.  He got the hang of it pretty quick, but I don’t think he realized how hard it was going to be.  On the plus side, it didn’t scare him away and he is willing to come back out again at the end of the week.  All my help is off for almost two weeks so I have just been taking the help whenever I can.  I really need to get a hay elevator.  Unloading the hay into the barn is the worst part.  We have it stacked over 17 feet high in the barn and you have to drag the bales up a bale ladder to get to the top.  My thighs and hips can tell you that it is not an easy thing.  We brought in 128 bales yesterday and approximately 80 the day before.  It was much cooler on day 2 and we started at 0600.  The early start made all the difference.  By the fourth load we were wearing out.  It took twice as long to unload it. 
Zeke was slaying voles left and right!  We got to where we would call him over before turning the bale over and then he would jump on the voles and bite them to death.  Not exactly pleasant for the voles.  He would spit them out onto the ground and wait for the next bale to be turned over.  After a couple of trips back and forth he must of decided he needed a protein pack.  He ate the last five!  In his defense, dinner was going to be another eight hours away.  At the rate we are filling up the barn I think we will need to use both hay rooms.  I will have to clean the boards out of the other one.  I also need to clean out the hay side of the machine shop so we can store the alfalfa. 

Today, I opted to not move hay.  Instead I sprayed weeds.  We had an infestation of goat heads and various other creeping weeds.  They should be crying by now, I finished spraying an hour ago. 

Right side of field needing picked up.

Left side of field.

Well today was the day we started picking hay up off the ground.  It is going to take a while.  We have to get all those little bales off the ground and into the barn.  Cam came out to the farm today to help me with the hay.  He brought his dog, a 3.5 month old puppy with him.  The puppy just was not sure how to deal with that much dust and heat.  By the end he did not want to come out from under the trailer.  Meanwhile, Zeke is running around the field terrorizing the animals till he got hot and tired.  We had to clean out the hay room first and restack the leftover hay from last year near the front.  Once, we got to the bottom of the stack we started to see mice so I called Zeke into the hay room.  He killed three mice.  The weirdest part is he does not eat them.  He just bites them till they are dead then bites them a couple more times and spits them out.  Cam stepped on a vole tail in the field and Zeke finished it off.  He loves killing small rodents.  Not as much as he likes chasing sheep though, nothing trumps sheep in his book.  Not even chasing cats.  He works the cows for me but only because I want him to, if he had his way I don’t think he would do it.  We did two loads, around 3 ton of barley/oat hay.  The storage room is already starting to stack up.  I am definitely going to have to empty and rearrange the other side to get all the hay into the barn.  Tomorrow, another eager teenager is coming out to the farm to help me with the hay.  I don’t think he has ever done it before. 

First trailer load for the barn.

Riggs, 3.5 month old puppy.  He was not too excited about helping.  Brand new experience for him.

Rob came to see us again today.  It is always a pleasure to have him come visit us.  The free food for labor plan we have is always available to any one willing for a little adventure.  The sheep have been having babies in droves and last time we banded and tagged was last time Rob was visiting.  So we did it again today.  Zeke came out and we tried to round up the baby sheep and mommas.  I always forget how painful it is to try and herd a bunch of new mothers and babies.  The Barbados in them causes the mothers to get all protective and they just don’t want to comply with the dog pushing them around.  We had to go into the old lambing barn to make sure it was empty of sheep.  Nope, there was a month old lamb with its head stuck between the tire and frame of the mule.  Luckily, it was still alive.  We usually go a week or two before checking the building.  It got lucky.  So now, I need to get the tractor and move the mule.  The sheep and horses love the old lambing building.  Rob did good snagging sheep.  He was able to catch each set of twins at the same time.  We had nine more sheep to tag and band.  We made the sheep run out of the barn through the chute.  They are starting to get used to it. 

Next on the agenda was the cows.  We had one baby that was born last month that had not even been gender checked yet.  We walked down and only saw 5 cows not 6.  So we walked down the pasture to the school house looking for a dead cow.  We didn’t find a cow carcass but boy did we see some game birds!  We scared up a big rooster pheasant, several covey of baby pheasants, a covey of quail, a covey of Hungarian partridges, some mourning doves and some fan tail doves.  We also saw a set of twin deer laying next to the old school house.  Once we hoofed it back to the apple tree where the five deer where located the 6th heifer showed up.  A couple of attempts occurred before we got the cows out of the field an on there way to the corral.  The corral was amazing!  It will be even better when we get the two custom gates installed in the actual chute. 

We got the calf separated from the herd and Rob went to catch it.  I had warned him that it was not the same as catching the baby sheep.  I don’t think he believed me until he actually tried to catch the calf.  Then he could not grab it or hold it down.  It took a few tries and then I could not band it.  we had to reposition the calf.  I was able to band it and tag it.  My mother will be happy, it is a baby boy so in 18 months it will be dinner.  Tomorrow if the weather cooperates, we are going to start bringing in some hay. 

Rob after a single encounter with a 3 week old calf.