Author: Steve Hardin

More babies

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It has been the season for babies. Our cows are now having calves and they are all coming fairly quickly. We have six calves on the ground now and I think there should be 1-3 more possibly. This means our bull did his job! Now only if the rams would learn from the bull, we have had the rams in with the sheep for almost two months now and Annmarie just saw them mounting a ewe the other day. We’re taking them out next week as we do not want to lamb for five months again. We will only have to lamb for two months this way. Which is a good thing as the rams are almost as wide as they are long. They are getting incredibly fat free ranging with the ewes. Everyone is fat and most of them have about half their winter coat rubbed off. The lucky few that have managed to clear their coat look great!

We did it again, and got another puppy. We have gotten used to having an ankle biter dog running around at the house. A dog with no job. We really liked the Brussel Griffin breed but the last two dogs have died young and had a lot of respiratory issues. Annmarie has been doing a lot of research and we like the terrier breed overall. We ended up getting a Border Terrier. He was over in Montana so we drove over and back in one day! Fourteen hours in the car is a little much. It has been a week now and Milo is finally settling in. He spends two days at each Grandmother’s house while we are at work. I have Fridays off so he is hanging out with me on Friday. The only real problem we are having is crate training him. We have been sleeping on the floor near the kennel in an attempt to get him used to the crate. It’s sorta working, we keep scooting the pile of blankets further away from the crate every couple of days. He does not appreciate the need for him to sleep alone. He is incredibly food driven. He can eat all of is food in about 15 seconds. So we have had to start figuring out how to slow him down. We were using a treat toy but we have to refill it three times for any meal. Our daughter told us about snuffle mats. I had no clue this was a real thing. Ours came a couple of days ago and it takes him about ten minutes to eat every meal now. This means he can actually breath while eating. Potty training is going well but going outside every hour is probably the real reason it is working.

Our lambs are doing well and we have been putting the sheep into the barn lot every night. So far, I do not think we have lost any lambs or ewes to the coyotes. I used the sheep to mow the front yard again. I am going to have to figure this out eventually after we redo the front lawn. The boom truck they are using to install the new siding is very heavy and we have large ruts in the ground now. The dogs had already been digging holes so the yard is a mess. We need to get the front rock wall completed and the short metal fence installed on top of it. On we get that done then we will kill the entire yard, regrade it, install underground sprinkler and then replant it. We want to go with some form of grass substitute that doesn’t need mowed or mowed 1-2 times a year. Once we do that the dogs will be kept out of the area around the house and can hang out on the front hillside. We are going to install the gazebo this year so the dogs can shelter out of the weather.

We want to install a drain in the center of the gazebo so that no rain or water can accumulate inside, it will also make it easier to clean out. I will put some lights and power inside but I will make sure the outlets are water proof so the gazebo can be washed down with a hose. I just need to order a couple of dump trucks of gravel to get this process started. We will be installing seven upright posts, installing the walls and then start pouring the concrete floor. We will concrete in the seven posts to provide stability and anchor the structure down to the ground.

Fencing progress

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Mr Rainman has been coming out to work on finishing up the fencing. We need to get the gate installed up at field #1. That way we can drive up alongside the wheat field and directly into the field. Otherwise, we have to drive through field three across the width, into field #2 and drive the entire length and width to get to the only access into field #1.

It took him a couple of days to get the railroad ties set, H braces installed and the gate hung. It takes the tractor with forks on it to hang the gate. You have to get the height at the exact spot before you can drill the holes and attach the gate. We will need to attach a cow panel to the gate so the sheep cannot crawl through the gate. Only the lambs are small enough but they don’t need to get out into the wheat field.

I found a spring steel T clip for attaching wire to metal T-posts that requires no tools online. I ordered a 1000 and will be testing them out. If they work then this will be a huge time saver as installing 8 clips on every T post does take time, especially if you are trying to get the bottom one on tight. Between the new clips, tractor post hole auger, the electric fence stapler and the T-post tractor bucket driver we have managed to really cut down on the time to install new fencing. Now if there was a way to get a robot to build it all that was not super expensive.

The puppy and I went to town and bought some more smooth wire high tensile strength tighteners. We then went down to the four corners field and started working on digging holes. We need to get the railroad ties installed and 3-5 round wooden posts. The T-posts will fill in the rest of the fence. I had forgotten that a lot of the holes had been drilled last year. I managed to clean out two, start in on a third and dig a ledge into a 16’ section of hillside to create a flat spot for the fence. We have to hang a panel over the ditch for water runoff. Once we get that fence installed then the animals will be able to clean up that corner and keep it knocked down.

We had 1.68” of rain last weekend so nothing got done outside. It is now almost 80 F this weekend so all of the greenery is shooting up again. Luckily, Mr Rainman had most of the spraying done except some backpack work alongside the ditch. So our fields are looking great and this year we hit most of the fence lines with RoundUp and that is helping our weed management. In another month we will have to start spraying the hillside for yellow star thistle. It has not emerged yet, it has not been hot enough.

We are also going to set up a gate that can be closed across the driveway when we are working cows. No more stray cows barreling down the driveway and jumping across the cattle guard. The gate will just stay open all of the time until we are working the animals. That is the majority of the fencing that needs to be done this year. We are going to have to start haying in about six weeks.

Alpaca disappointment

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Today Mr Rainman and I went over to a neighbor’s house to pickup some old bags of mortar mix and some calcium field conditioner. It went well and he is always a pleasure to visit. Once those were unloaded it was time to decide which section of fence to work on, the driveway, four corners or the upper gate? We opted to work on the driveway. I wanted to get the wild rose bushes protected from the alpaca during their growing seasons. The alpaca will not let them grow through the fence. They will nibble off every single little green spot they can reach. The Roundup that was sprayed on the driveway is starting to kick in and you can see it working. The game birds and rabbits love to hide in the rose bushes. We lifted the woven wire up off the ground four inches so the little animals can still crawl under the fence. This took us about five hours to install posts and 300’ of woven fence.

The Gingerman came over to help us get the “little dumper” truck onto the flat bed so I could get the brakes worked on. I failed to take into account that the truck was the length of the trailer and all weight is only on the tires. The trailer looked like an upside down U. The Gingerman had to drive it off the trailer and park it in front of the house. He will buy a master cylinder for the brakes and see if he can get the brakes working because my trailer is not going to work. When it starts to warm up consistently I will need to get back to working on replacing all of the rubber window sills.

We finally got some rain! It has rained almost 1/2” over the last five days. We had gone almost three weeks without any rain. The grass needed the moisture. Now I hope it will rain every week for a month.

A lot of little things

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Saturday was a full day for us and farm work was not going to happen. Mr Rainman came out and spent the day catching up a lot of little things. I had purchased 20 bags of sand, 15 stepping stones and 12 bags of pea gravel the day before for the projects. He started by working in 18 bags of sand into our future asparagus/strawberry elevated bed out in the lavender area. Our two year asparagus crowns had just arrived on Wednesday and they needed to be planted. He had two bags left over and I used those when I planted the 24 crowns that evening. We don’t get to do anything but hope they survive this year and maybe next year we will get to harvest some asparagus as it will be three years old by then. The Gingerman is bringing us some strawberry starts next month and we will put those right on top. The Lavender only gets watered twice a week so we are going to put the asparagus on the same circuit as them.

Annmarie has been wanting to be able to feed the cats barefoot but now that we have to walk across eight feet of rough gravel she has been requesting stepping stones. He got a channel dug and then the concrete steps set. Once he got the gravel around everything he watered it really well and then reapplied gravel. The extra gravel went outside the fence on the yard side. We are going to make a small gravel area by the gate so the extra gravel went there. It turned out very nice. The only thing left is to extend the cat rain roof so their food gets better protection when it rains. I need to extend the sides down and put a front on so the snow cannot blow in as easily.

The next project is purely a Mr Rainman idea. We had been talking about various ways to fill in the old flower beds in the mud room. He had suggested filling them up with pea gravel. This was a wonderful idea so I picked up 12 bags. The only real problem is even though it was bagged it was still pretty dirty. So he brought the cement mixer over and washed the pea gravel in it. When it was clean he dumped it out on the ground and scooped it up for the mud room. It looks great! I decided it needed a little help drying before we moved the cabinet and shoes back in place. So I started up a small electric heater and cracked open the window. It’s been 24 hours and I think it will take 3-4 days to get the pea gravel all dried out! Once it is then all of the stuff can be put back in place. Mouse is grumpy because his food area is cluttered and he does not like it.

The last thing he did for the day was gets all of the garden beds cleaned out and an old wooden barrel cleaned out and tossed onto the burn pile. It was too far gone and had a large hole in it. We are still holding off on planting the garden due to the freezing temperatures

The contractor came out and installed two of the three windows but they were not double hung. He had ordered double hung but was not given them. New ones are on order. Our new siding should be delivered May 13, 2024. They will start on the sides away from where the windows need replaced.

Our cows started having calves 2 days ago! We now have two calves on the ground and healthy. There are 7-9 to go, I am unclear on how many cows are pregnant.

Call the ambulance…

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Normally I don’t talk about my paying job on the blog as I try to keep them separate and for the most part it is manageable. Unfortunately, today that was not possible. I volunteered to help out the Sheriff’s department yesterday in training officers how to recognize and test impaired drivers. I learned about this from the hospital as we were sponsoring this learning opportunity. I volunteered and set aside seven hours, to assist, what this really meant was I started day drinking around 1300 and had to keep it up for four straight hours. I really did not understand how much alcohol one has to consume to keep your blood alcohol level sustained. It is a lot! I failed every single sobriety test they could think to test on me. When I got home I just kept drinking water and could not fall asleep. So this morning I really needed a lot more sleep. I had a hangover. Nope, no sleep for self induced misery at our house.

I ended up going to town, getting a bunch of stuff to fix the driveway fence, ground anchors for the greenhouse and food for the dogs. So when I got home I threw some more fencing tools in the back of the pickup and went out to work on the driveway fence. I was hand driving eight foot T-posts into the ground but they are so tall I had to back the pickup up to the spot and stand on the tailgate so I could drive them in. I am installing seven feet of woven wire where we have wild rose bushes. The birds and bunnies love to hang out in the wild bushes. But the alpaca love to eat those same wild rose bushes. So they are constantly eating them down as far as they can reach. The plan was to install tall T-posts and add an upper section of woven wire so the alpaca cannot lean over the lower section and eat the tops out of the bushes.

I had been fencing for a few hours and just did not feel well. Finally around 1530 I decided that a nap was needed. Trouble was if I went back to the house the wife would tell me to suck it up! So instead I set an alarm on my phone and laid down in the driveway on the little hill. It had some grass and honestly I was beat and needed the sleep. The pickup was still parked crooked in the driveway as I had just driven a post in prior to the nap. I got my nap in and woke up about three minutes before my alarm went off. I jumped in the pickup and headed toward the road. I had started at the cattle guard on the road and was working my way toward the houses as I improved the fence. As I approached the road I saw the ambulance and fire truck come roaring up the road. They slowed down and asked if I had seen some guy “down” on the road near a blue and white pickup. I said no and they went on down the road. About 30 seconds later it occurred to me that I was the person “down” and the blue pickup was our green pickup. I called the ambulance driver on her cell phone and told her I was just hungover and needed a nap! They had to cancel Pendleton Fire Department ambulance, the Lifeflight helicopter and the police came out also!

I am glad one of the neighbors called for assistance. As I used to volunteer for the fire dept they all got a laugh out of it. I will strive to ensure that my future naps are out of sight of the road.