Last of the lambs.  Only 10 left alone.

I knew I was behind on my posts.  This one is from June 6.  I saved the pictures I thought and tonight when I was looking at my phone I realized that it was telling me to retry the upload.  I had a low light picture of seven bucks but it was too blurry to post.  I was walking down to turn off the irrigation pump and 9 bucks were drinking in our front creek.  I hope they come back during hunting season.  I still don’t know if I got a tag or not.  It would have been a cool picture.  The iphones just do not take decent low light pictures in my opinion.  Pretty quick it will be time to sort off the baby sheep again from the main herd.  They can go hang out with their brethren in the barn lot.
I put an add up on Craigslist for our two baby calves to be sold in mid July.  They will be six months old and can be weaned off of their moms. 

Our babies for sale, only one visible.

It only took two weeks to sell our sheep on Craigslist this time.  That is pretty fast for us.  Last time it took all summer long.  It helps when someone wanted all we had and we had to limit them to 30.  Annmarie and Sarah took care of that while I was off at a funeral. 

Barn floor

I came home last night and spotted a raccoon running up one of front trees!  I could not believe the audacity of the critter.  Mouse treed it and I ran inside to arm myself against the invasion.  There was a brief internal struggle as to what type of weapon should I bring.  Do I go for the shotgun?  I wasn’t sure where in the tree it would be and didn’t want to damage the tree.  Do I just grab the trusty Walther P22?  If it is way up high in the tree this might cause me problems.  I opted for the standard Ruger 10/22 but I have left the bolt action at mom’s house so I had to get the one out of the zip up case, loaded it and then grabbed the Walther P22 because one can never be really sure about which weapon is truly needed.  It took me a while to find it in the tree.  Then all I could see was its face looking out behind a large branch.  So the rifle was a good first choice.  As it came down out of the tree I had to switch to the pistol.  One more chicken killer down. 

We had to take Mouse into the vet for cheat grass removal between his toes.  He got an abscess.  This happened to Zeke as a puppy also.  Puppies are too stupid to clean out their own feet.  Zeke is really good about it now.  So Mouse is on antibiotics and we now have to clean out his feet every day.
 



Barn floor

Heath is cleaning out the barn and making good progress.  I am hoping it gets done by the end of the week.  After the barn the next big thing is to clean out the chicken coop then to move the hay around in the barn to get ready for this years hay. We have to restack the old stuff so it gets used first.  It is so dried out we may just feed 50% old and 50% new till we run out of old. 

Sarah talked me into helping her create a chalkboard for wedding party names for a friend’s wedding.  She supplied all the painting labor and I supplied the cutting and assembly.  She helped me hold during the assembly part.  It came out nice but it took me almost 3 hours in labor without doing any painting.  It does seem like Pinterest was invented as some fancy Man Torture, just saying. 

 

Wedding board finished

Maybe sand will do the trick

I spent Sunday afternoon playing catchup. Our front gate keeps getting loose.  I set the post in gravel but the constant opening and closing causes the post to sag.  Instead of digging all the gravel out and pouring concrete around it I just poured sand over the top and slammed it in with a large breaker bar.  It is pretty stiff now, time will tell if it actually worked.  I may have to dig it out and set it in concrete yet. 

My nephew is digging out the barn and doing a few odd chores around the place.  I started him on the barn and took the tractor out to mow the grass again.  We have had so much rain that the cheat grass needs to be mowed a second time! 

I did walk around and pick up scrap metal all around the machine shop.  I cannot stop myself, its like a compulsion.  I had to use a pickaxe to get some of it out of the ground.  I just keep after it, I doubt I will ever get it all in my lifetime.  I pick a few hundred pounds out of the ground every year. 



Back deck ready for furniture and steps

I needed to spread out more paver sound on the back deck.  I used a whole bag and ended up with a full second bag.  The bad part is it cannot get wet.  I still need to put together both outside chair sets and get them stained. I also need to attach one of the grill wheels, it fell off and needs to be reattached. 

We have had the bull penned up in the corral for the last week. He is not happy about the arrangements.  We need to get the baby calves sold so he can mix with all the other cows.

I did it, I got the water running!!  It took a bit but it is spraying where it is needed. I needed a new discharge hose and had to go to three businesses before I found one that had it. The real problem was I was in a time crunch and was afraid no one in Pendleton would have it. I ended up buying it at the equipment rental place.  I only needed 15 feet but they had 50 & 100 ft rolls with attached connectors. I asked about bulk hose but it would take 2 days and cost $17/foot!!

I bought a pre made 50 ft roll for $135 or approximately $2.75/foot it was “slightly used”. It looked brand new to me. I hacked off one end when I got to the farm. This summer when we run out of water I will get a real quick connector welded to the pipe so I can use fittings instead of hose clamps on the discharge hose. It will make it much easier to replace in the future. I left both end caps off and am hoping that the water pressure cleans out the mud and debris in the pipe. Annmarie told me yesterday that four more sprinkler heads had cleared themselves. We will run the irrigation until there is not enough water. I have no idea what the electricity bill will be. The guy on the phone tried to explain it to me, but it was quite convoluted. So much so that I closed the conversation with “you will send me a bill?”  Once I was assured that the billing address was correct I gave up on caring how much it costs we need to run the pump and we are being billed at irrigation rates. Once the bill comes I will have an approximate rate. I am told that at the end of the summer I get an extra bill based on my peak draw rate I.e. Startup of pump. So in all reality I have no clue what it will cost. 

I out an add on Craigslist for the sheep. So far I have only gotten one email and she wanted pictures. I sent an email with the blog link but I do need to go take some more pictures and link them to the ad.  

My dog proofing of the yard has failed already.  Zeke has figured out how to get out. No one has seen him in the act yet so we are not sure where it is occurring. I am going to have to install woven wire across the entire front. On a plus side, Sprout has not been able to get out of the yard since the update on the fencing.