Yesterday I spent most of the day fencing.  Now in reality I did not touch any fencing tools I just picked rocks off the hillside, for those souls who think I work too hard I did use the tractor.  I had this big plan to clear out all the rocks on the hillside near the rock cribs.  There were these rocks sticking up about eight inches above ground that were in the road, I decided to remove them first.  There was a reason they were still in the road.  Some of those rocks were over 100 pounds each.  I had to hit them several times with the box blade before using the bucket to lift them out of their respective holes.  Seven hours later I had all six rock cribs filled and only 2400ft sq cleared of rocks.  I need to clear ten acres of rocks, it is going to take some time.

I came into the home exhausted and just wanted to eat then shower.  We were sitting at the dinner table waiting for the biscuits to go into the oven when our nephew came and told us the sheep were out and across the street.  We all went down to the corner with Zeke.  Annmarie and Zeke pushed them across the road then Monica and I pushed them into the barn lot.  We put them in the ram pasture and I had every intention of getting to the fence eventually.  They were out again this morning.  I spent three hours lowering the fence in the orchard.  I fixed a 150 foot section.  Three more posts need to be placed before I can finish the last section of fence in the orchard.  I really need to get the panels back onto the barn so they don’t sneak past.  If I had the new fence by the barn completed, sheep sneaking out  would not have mattered.  The sheep are back in the orchard.

I spent an hour scrubbing sheep manure off of thirty year old buckets this afternoon.  They looked pretty good after I was done.  The girls will still have to spray everythings with bleach this weekend to give it the final sterilization.

The raw dirt section is going to get fenced in for the sheep.

Sunset

The barn does smell better now.  There is still a little residual skunk smell, but that should pass in a few more days.  Yesterday I really needed to get out and fill the rock cribs with rocks, but I just could not make myself.  Instead I used the box blade and flattened out the area in front of the barn so it is ready for some new fence. I found about 10 buried concrete 1 ft square blocks and one 2×3 foot block a foot thick.  The blocks extended quite a ways out from the barn.  I am not sure what they had built, but it stuck way out from the barn and was on concrete pads.  This took me about two hours to flatten out.  I still need to move some of that close fence but at this point I need to get this outer fence up before I rip any inner fence down.  I need something to contain the animals.  I keep hoping my part time helper will finish his other tasks so he can help me.  I have pretty much planned out the new section of fence.

New Rock cribs.

 I am still fencing.  No big surprise here.  Anyone who fences animals can tell you it is a never ending process.  Rule #1 Fencing never ends, Rule#2 It always takes longer than you think, Rule#3 The sheep will always find a hole. 
Monica, our foreign exchange, helped me lay out the boards on Sunday.  I asked her if she wanted to help me fence, and she volunteered (pretty sure she didn’t know what she was volunteering for).  She showered and put on clean clothes before we went out.  We dug through the scrap fencing pile and pulled out over 100 pieces of used fencing rails to use as new rock cribs.  Multiple trips up onto the hill to distribute said rails to the appropriate locations we finished with that task.

More new rock cribs.

We then graduated to pitch forking the weeds out of the upper fence line so I can retighten and add a couple of strands.  The fence line is about 2/3 completed.  She did finally break out into a sweat a couple of hours into the job.  After we finished she had to take another shower.  We are getting her some work clothes and boots this upcoming weekend. 

I have spent the last two days building rock cribs.  I keep changing the design.  Annmarie is not particularly happy with the height of them.  I told her after they were full of rocks I could touch them with the chainsaw and lower them a little bit.  I finished all six today and filled one with rocks already.  The rest of them need rocks, but the rocks are barely sticking out of the hillside and won’t come out easily.  I had to get the tractor up and going after Mr President sprung a leak on the hydraulics.  The tractor is running and I have the box blade attached.  I will hit the rocks with the box blade to pull them out of the ground and then just lay the bucket next to the rocks then get off and roll them in to the bucket.  Then I can lift the bucket next to the rock jack and just roll the rocks out.  Easy peasey.  No lifting 50# plus rocks off the ground, carrying them to the rock jack, lifting them over the side and dropping them in.  Much easier with the tractor. 

I noticed my first dent in the tractor today!  The hood has a dent in it about the size of a basketball.  I am sure it from a falling piece of sheep manure.  Not sure when it happened.  My trailer has multiple dents, a bent light fixture, a broken wooden floor, and a flat tire.  Everything is getting farmerized.

Hopefully, by next week I can have the new fence up.  I attempted to drive metal posts into the ground today.  I picked the perfect time of the year, the temperature has been over 90 for a month and there has not been any measurable rain for 6 weeks.  The ground is like concrete.  It doesn’t help that I am building rock cribs because it is a rocky hillside.  I managed to get 6 posts in the ground.  I bet I tried over 50 times.  Some of the spacing is determined by where I could get the posts to go into the ground.  I have one very large stretch that may cause me to build one more rock crib.  I am going to attempt to string wire without that extra rock crib.  I am going to need some wooden spacers to keep the fence in line and prevent the animals from spreading the wires. 

I took my .17 HMR out every time I fenced this week.  Of course, I did not see a single coyote.  NO Gun = coyotes, Gun= no coyotes, go figure.  We had to herd the cows into the sorting chute today to look at some wounds on the bull.  He got into the compost fence and scratched his scrotum and belly.  The wounds were healing, but the cows were covered in flies.  We are talking hundreds of flies per cow.  It was amazing.  Annmarie got the horse fly spray out and while we had them in the chute she sprayed them all down.  Not a single fly by the time we were done.  We also turned them out onto the upper pasture.  They still came in at night, but they can leave to eat.  The fence I am building is for the sheep. 

Annmarie called me while I was at work this week to let me know she had done a chicken count.  I lost two more hens.  I need to lose the rooster, he is expendable.  The predators have figured out that the human door doesn’t latch very well and pops open on occasion.  We had noticed it over the last few weeks but had not seen any predators.  Just before I left for work, Zeke got sprayed by a skunk in our front yard.  I figured it was coming around for a chicken snack.  He had to spend the night out on the run, (being kennel trained he made quite a bit of ruckus about spending the night on the run and he kept barking at all the animals).  So it is most likely a skunk.  I hate skunks, there is no good way to dispose of them without them spraying.  It always smells.  I definitely need to get the trap setup. 

We have seen coyotes during the day on two separate occasions in the last week.  Of course, I had no gun.  So now every time I leave the house to fence I carry a rifle.  I am currently using the .17 HMR.  It is good for 200 yards.  If I have trouble due to distances then I will switch over to the .243.  Fencing has become a priority again.  The sheep have been running all over the countryside.  We let them out to eat on the main pasture and of course they went straight to the holes in the fence and went out onto the road.  The neighbors have been chasing them off the road and calling my mother-in-law.  I went up onto the hillside to work on fence last night and spent a couple of hours digging the weeds out of the fence so I could see the fence.  I still have another 100 yards of fence to clean up.  I was doing it all by hand, but I intend on using the pitchfork today.  Once it is all cleaned up I can fix it and tighten it.  I need to add one or two more rows to keep the sheep in.  We are also going to subdivide the hill so we can let the sheep out sooner.  That will give me more time to get the upper fence fixed.  The upper fence is a very big job.  There is a lot of fence to fix. 

Yesterday we let the horses and cows out into the area in front of the houses.  The horses came out and grazed around.  I thought this was a great idea as the front area is not sheep safe and my mother-in-law’s roses take a beating when the sheep get into her yard.  This morning at “0 dark thirty” Annmarie says to me “I remember why we cannot have the horses out there, they eat cars”.  I almost leaped off the bed in a state of panic.  She was absolutely right!  The pickup has scratch marks in the paint and so does my tractor.  Luckily, this morning the horses were in the barn lot and I shut the gate.  I don’t want bite marks on the cars.

Annmarie and I had just finished dinner when the call came in, the sheep were up in the CRP above the house.  One of the neighbors had found them on the road and chased them into the CRP then called our mother-in-law.  Around here, animals getting out is fairly common.  I have now had to shift gears to fencing and more fencing.  So I took the trusty sheep dog, Zeke, put on some slippers and headed up the hill.  Annmarie put on some boots, grabbed a halter for one of the horses and went to get the errant horse.  Hogs would not come back to the house and was standing up on the hillside near the fence and the other horses.  Mika, (other horse) was down at the house whinnying nonstop for Hogs.  Zeke was constantly being distracted by voles.  He loves catching them and had to be constantly reminded that we were doing “work” and he could play later (he is only 11 months old).  I was able to tell him to find the sheep and he took off toward the road, scaring up 3 deer.  I had to make him lay down (120 yards away from me) until the deer ran off.  He then ran into the CRP and the sheep were herded back to the hole in the fence.  You just keep a little pressure on them with the dog and they just wander back the way they came.  There is a veritable highway crossing through the fence in that location.  It needs to be fixed.  The fence from there to the bone yard needs to be tightened. 

Once the sheep and horse were in the ram pasture we started looking for the cows.  No cows!  We started trudging up toward the upper pasture (I am starting to regret my choice of foot wear about now).  I called Zeke from the house and he ran out to meet us and then run across the field harassing voles.  We had to walk all the way to the end of the field before I spotted a brown side, I said cow, Annmarie said no, she thought it looked like a creek diverter (made out of old metal barrels for flood irrigation, located right where it should be).  The brown spot was not moving.  Once we got a little closer the cow stuck her head up.  The other three were down in the dry creek bed hiding.  Zeke refused to be of any assistance.  He was tired and did not want to do anything.  I had to run across the field in my slippers to head the cows off from sneaking behind us once.  The field had a lot of thistles.  I never did get the upper field sprayed as I concentrated on the hillside and the lower fields.  The upper field had already budded out and the spray guys told me it was too late by then.  So instead of putting expensive spray on the ground that wasn’t going to control the weeds, I will wait until next year and hit it earlier.  Everything is ready and working now so it should go smoothly. 

The cows came home with us walking behind them.  All was good and the sunset was gorgeous (thanks to all the wild fires).  Zeke was outside just before bedtime running around, when he started to bark.  I then smelled skunk.  Luckily, the dog did not get a full spray to the body from the offending skunk, he only caught a small backlash.  The front bushes caught the brunt force of the spray.  Zeke still smelled like skunk so he had to sleep outside.  This is new to him as he normally sleeps in a kennel.  So he barked frequently throughout the night.  It was not very restful for all involved.  On a much larger note, I am betting the skunk has been eating my chickens.  The automatic chicken door still works but the human door has been having latching issues and has been open the last few days.  Definitely, time for a chicken roll call this weekend.  I am betting the count is going to be off.  Damn Predators!