Cook top ready for repair

upper gate tight and rock jack filled

I had a plan.  It was a good plan.  Mr. President was coming out to the house today at 0800.  We were going to sort out the two steers and move them into the upper prime pasture, then sort off all the butcher sheep to the same pasture.  This would then allow us to turn the new ram in with the ewes.  Plus, we were going to sort off the no scrotal sack ram, Easy Peasy, then the front lawn could be mowed.  The repair guy was coming at 1300 for the cook top.
So at 0500 it started going South. It started to pour down rain, then after having a conversation with Annmarie it was decided I would need to move the horses and alpaca before I could move the cows and then I needed to move the ram before sorting the sheep. 
Mr. President arrived and we went out, Annmarie had let the horses into the front yard.  We then moved the alpaca into the orchard, this went fairly smoothly as both dogs were in play.  Mouse was on the 30 foot leash. He does better and we were going to move sheep and cows so I figured it would be better to start off with the leash.  I threw out a few leafs of hay in the front barn lot for the cows to entice them into the barn lot.  The only thing left was to go get the cows.  We went by Donna’s house and opened the gate for the cows.  As we passed the irrigation pond I noticed a bunch of moss in the pond.  This was guaranteed to plug up the intake on my pump screen.  I need to get some kind of chemical to put the hurt on this situation.  We went down and I attempted to get the cows.  I walked all over the lower field and hillside.  Zeke thought he knew better and had the cows going every which way.  The bull just wanted to holler at the other bulls across the road and not move.  Mouse wanted to chase every thing.  I kept stopping and making each dog listen.  Each command had to be preceded by the dog’s name.  I keep getting them used to working independently with different verbal commands for each dog.  It’s a difficult concept to get used to.  After Zeke screwed up a few times I had to take Mouse off the safety leash and turn him loose in the trees to go after the cows.  He does much better, he is far more aggressive with the cows and takes no crap.  He will grab their tails and bite them on the backs of the knees when they don’t listen.  We finally got them through the first set of fences and out of the school house pasture.
  We stopped to lower the creek crossing and install the ground level cable.  The bull should not be able to lift the panels out of the creek.  We shut the lower gate and went on top of the hill to close that gate.  I had not filled the rock jack yet so we had to spend 45 minutes walking large rocks back and forth to the jack to fill it up.  The rocks kept getting heavier the longer we went on.  Now the cows are locked out of the lower pasture.  The cows have left the lower pasture and are in the vehicle area on their own.  As we stop by the irrigation pond I come up with the brilliant idea to pull the irrigation dam out and let the moss get washed away.  It took two of us to pull the metal gate out of the way.  The water roared through the 2 foot culvert.  It cleared out 75% of the moss in the pond and took almost 10 minutes to empty the pond.  We meandered up toward the barn lot and pushed the cows into the barn lot, it only took a couple of tries.  We sorted off the steers within ten minutes.  It was not too awful, but we needed a spot for the steers so we placed them in the area with the horse stalls.  I called the ram into the back barn lot then we dropped both panels over each end of the ram pasture.  We went and got the sheep and placed them in the ram pasture,  Mouse and Zeke did very well.  It was already 1130 so lunch was in order.  I told Mr. President we could move the steers after lunch,
as it seemed reasonable. 
While eating lunch Sarah calls me to say there is a cow in the front yard, as she is talking to me it runs by our living room window and I hear an exclamation from my partner!  As we were figuring out how to tackle this problem, the second steer leaps into the front yard.   The horses got moved into the third area of the sorting corral and the cows chased into the other two areas of the corral.  We then moved gates around to get the cows into the barn lot.  We tried multiple times to get them into the upper prime field without success, until one finally jumped through the fence.  Damn cows!  I took Zeke and ran down half the field trying to cut the cow off before it joined up with the herd.  No such luck.  Momma found her 12 month old big baby boy!!  So now we had to spend a couple of hours patching and restretching the fence.  We added wooden stays and two more metal T-posts and made the fence animal proof.  I would be surprised if one animal of any kind could get through the fence now.  Repair guy called at 1330, he could not make it and needed to reschedule. 
Annmarie had taken Zeke and Mouse to get the sheep into the barn and start the sorting process.  I went to help after finishing the fence and paying Mr. President.  Halfway through the process our local metal fabricator appeared in the barn to look at our back garden gate we needed made.  I asked him how he knew we were in the barn.  He said he could hear us from the driveway.  Annmarie took him so he would know what we wanted.  Sarah and I sorted.  The no scrotal sack but two testicle boy is too small to wean off  of his mom yet.  We kept 38 ewes to be bred and the other 50 lambs got sorted out, that is a lot of lamb!!  The new ram was so happy!  He just kept running around trying to find a willing ewe, none of them were having any of it initially. 
So this weekend we will have to redo the cows.  Most likely we will put the steers in the corral for about a week with food and water to get them used to not being with their mommas every day.  Hopefully that will help.  I also changed out two of the gate latches with new horseshoe latches.  Our lawn is incredibly high but Mr. President said he will come tackle it on Friday.  I sure hope the weather allows this miracle to happen. 

Look at that beautiful fence repair!



Our new Dorper/Katahdin cross 1 yr old ram

Today was the day we went to get our new ram!  All three of us loaded into the pickup for a three hour drive.  I had to spend 45 minutes unloading tools and trash out of the pickup before we left.  Plus making the pen in the back of the pickup for the ram to ride home in. 
His name is Oreo, this is the second ram named Oreo we have owned and we did not name either one.  He is hand tamed and we can rub all over him he is so friendly.  The people we bought him from were great.  He got wormed just before going into the pickup.  The ride to our house was stress free.  He rode great.  We did get some funny looks on the freeway as people passed us.  You would think they don’t know what a hair sheep looks like.  Unloading was a breeze, I just backed the pickup up to a sheep compost pile, dropped the tailgate and opened the fence up and he walked out.  We are going to leave him in the barn lot for a few days.  On Wednesday we will sort the sheep, we need to take out the one nutter baby ram and a couple of whethers to keep him company.  We will stash those guys in the back barn lot for a few weeks.  We are going to sort off the baby girls we are going to sell for meat.  They should be old enough to wean off their mommas.  All of the meat sheep will go into the upper prime pasture.  We also have to sort off the two oldest calves.  They are over a year old and are still stealing milk from the mommas that are getting ready to birth their new calves.  Those two steers will also go in with the meat sheep in the upper prime pasture. 

Sheep got out for a stroll

Herbicides are a glorious thing

I am going to have to hook up the mower to the tractor by this weekend and mow the entire property.  Their has been so much rain that the entire place is growing into one big grass patch. 
My herbicide spraying is starting to become visible.  It looks like I should be good for another couple of months before the next round of spraying. 
I really want to get some fence built but it just keeps getting pushed back.  I have been spending most of my spare time getting grandma’s house ready for Sarah.  I just about have the vinyl floor installed in the bedroom.  The painting is progressing well. 

I have still not mowed our front yard!  On the plus side I did pickup our mower four days ago from the repair shop and it does actually run.  I tested it today when I pulled it out of the back of the pickup (so we could go get the ram).  It had not been there very long!!  Now the mower just needs to chop down the 2 foot tall grass that is populating our front yard. 

Last night I set out the trap. I had seen a possum the other morning so I knew something was roaming the farm. There is now one dead possum. My chickens are safe for now. I will keep the trap out for a few more days before putting it away. I sprayed Roundup all over the driveway to take it back from the weeds. I will need to rinse out the tank before spraying another few loads of 2-4-D on the lower pasture. 

I had to fix the yard fence again as Zeke has figured out a way out again. I think he is jumping through the fence strands. I had to add three posts, tighten it and then add an upper strand and take loose wire to tire all the strands together. This way Zeke cannot spread them apart while jumping through them.  Now I have to wait 7-10 days for the spray results to start showing.  Tomorrow it’s back over to grandma’s house to get more work done on it 

Marshmallow baited trap

Fence fixed hopefully

Baby radish peeking through already!

Spraying upper prime field, just in time

Pump pond full now just got to fix the inlet seal

 

Kitchen cupboards with doors

A couple of new shelves and pull out shelves

I 

I spent the day trying to get the irrigation pump up and running.  This sounds easy but since there are NO local stores that sell anything to do with farming irrigation I had to drive to Hermiston.  First, I had to remove the clamshell clamp on holding the inlet pipe onto the pump housing.  It is made out of cast aluminum and I cracked half of it last year tightening it.  I figured I would remove, it drive to Hermiston and get another one at the irrigation store. We have no local irrigation stores any more. I drove to Hermiston only to find out that I should have taken some pictures of the setup before tearing it apart. The place was very busy, I am timely for once, so when my turn came I was informed that my part was obsolete. Very obsolete even ancient. So a suggestion was made for me to go across the street to the custom metal fabrication shop and get it welded. I made it across four lanes of traffic and talked with someone. It will cost the same for aluminum or stainless steel. I opted for steel. He only wanted to fix the broken half. I opted to redo the whole thing, about $300.  It will be done this week. I also bought 30 gaskets to go inside the irrigation pipe for a paltry $100. As soon as I have the collar I can fire up the pump and see if it works!! While in Hermiston I tried to get my plastic sprayer part. The store sold the sprayers but did not carry the part. I told the clerk that it needed to be remedied. When I got home my handle and the spare I ordered had arrived. I knocked the pin out and beat it back in place with the handle now aligned. I was able to start spraying Friday evening until dark. On Saturday I finished spraying 2-4-D, 220 gallons of mixed spray. I just have the lower fields to do now. The next thing is spraying Roundup on the driveway and fence lines. 

Our master bedroom walk in closet is done!!  It turned out great there is so much more storage space that we are unsure what to do with it. Annmarie loves it. Our downstairs cupboards are almost done. They just need knobs but the cabinet guy wanted to know where she wanted them exactly. 

Walk in bedroom closet done

lots of space

My corner

The shoe rack