Barn lot fence almost ready for wire.

The weatherman said we were going to get a doozy of a winter storm.  For once, they were right.  It got very cold and dumped seven inches of snow in a 24 hour period.  It has been mighty frigid since then, getting below zero several nights.  Add in some wind and it is downright unpleasant to be outside. 

On day two of the freeze before the snow I spent the last two hours of daylight attempting to get ready for winter.  I put the mule back in the old lamb shed and parked the tractor under cover next to it.  I put away all the hoses and finished getting the barn ready.  I also managed to pound in the four T posts needed for my cross fence in the barn lot.  It was not easy, each post got about 40 strikes to pound it in the ground 10 inches.  One more day and I never would have gotten the posts in the ground.  I had dressed very warmly with my insulated overalls and jacket, and vest and coat and insulated gloves.  I was dripping in sweat!  I forgot that if I am going to be doing physical labor outside I need to be almost too cold when I leave the house.  Once the sweat starts up you don’t get overheated and sopping wet.  The only caveat is you have to keep working hard or you will get cold! 

Today, I went out first thing to let the sheep out of the barn.  Now that winter is here we are locking the sheep up in the barn every night.  We only feed at night due to having the most time at night.  First thing in the morning we only have time to open the barn up.  We just fill the feeders up with the allotted food at night.  Annmarie had accidently left the momma/baby area door open so the sheep were mixed together.  Zeke and I resorted and ended up with an extra pregnant momma in the baby area.  She will be fine.  Zeke is doing great with the sheep.  Everyone has a routine and they stick to it.  Zeke only got to push the sheep into the barn before the snow.  Now the sheep are in the barn before dark waiting to be fed.  He gets to run up to the barn door and stare in at the sheep.  No chasing them into the barn.  We bring Zeke into the barn with us and make him guard the entrance to the hay room. This keeps the sheep away and lets you keep the door open so you can go in and out freely with the pitchfork.  I have two pitchforks with shortened handles that make it easier to move the hay around inside the barn.  As soon as you move a bale of hay Zeke jumps in the hole looking for mice to kill.  He has learned that is part of his job.  He can move down one side of the barn with the sheep running all around and doesn’t break his down command.  He still has issues with the cows listening to him.  We tried to move cows around today for practice and it was a total failure.  This is the reason the cross fencing on the barn lot is so important. 

The cows will not go into the square pen easily, but they do like the barn lot.  So we are going to open up the barn lot gate, run the cows into the new pen, shut the door and then run them into the square pen for sorting.  It should make sorting them easy.  We have plans to install some chutes and small pens in that area to sort the cows easier but we are still working on that plan. 

I got all the fencing installed today and went to Pendleton for gate mounts so it could be installed.  I set up the gate so you have to swing the existing gate on the barn out to meet the added gate this leaves a 30 foot opening for when we are not using it as a sorting area.  Plus, I didn’t have to buy another gate.  I also moved two of the feeder panels behind the old lamb shed onto the front of the lean-to that used to shelter the lambs and momma sheep.  We are going to sort out the 6 month old female cows (2) and sell our six month old bull.  We will house our two young heifers and another person’s young heifer till late spring then we will turn them out with our bull.  That will give us five mothers next year.  We are still discussing whether to purchase three more next year.  We will decide that in the spring. 

Barn lot cross fence completed!

Another win for the farm!  Annmarie was up and out of bed first thing in the morning yesterday, while I attempted to go back to sleep.  She took the dogs out to potty and started hollering for me to get down there immediately. I leaped out of bed and ran downstairs in the buff.  She had a large flashlight and was spotlighting a possum in the front yard. She had managed to call our border collie off, but Sprout, our Brussels Griffin was unwilling to quit attacking.  He is eleven pounds of fearless!  Did the same thing during the raccoon attack.  I reached in the front door and grabbed a .243, a little overkill but it was the closest gun.  Unfortunately, it has a scope and in the dark with a flashlight it was not easy to spot the critter.  It starts running away, I had to make sure I knew where Sprout was so he didn’t catch any friendly fire, so I was delaying pulling the trigger.  Annmarie starts hollering “shoot” then started in with “hand me that rifle so I can do it” before I managed to pull the trigger.  The possum runs away into the dark, with Annmarie admonishing me for missing again.  I told her “no way I missed, saw the animal limping”. She wanted to run out and check on it.  I told her after I got dressed I would stalk the yard in the dark!  I grabbed my trusty Walther P22 and flicked on the laser.  This is the best gun for varmints at night around the house. I do need to replace the batteries on my laser.  Too much nighttime prowling the laser light is pretty weak.  The possum was right down by the creek dying. A couple of finish shots and it was over quick.