Farm

Fencing prep.

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I need to get the new upper fence pasture created.  I have been trying to figure out how to get it done quickly and easily.  I realize that fencing and easy are words that don’t belong together.  I was going to run the fence up the hillside and cross the creek but every time I cross the creek I have to hang panels and they have to be moved up every spring and lowered every summer.  For ease of installing and maintaining I have decided to fence off the creek.  This will cost me some extra materials but it will be better in the long term maintenance department.  I am going to just run the new fence in the bottom only.  I may even decide to run the fence up the hillside and cross the creek later.  

Thursday I took the box blade off the tractor and attached the mower.  It is getting easier with repetition.   It only took me about 40 minutes.  I had to straighten and adjust my front bucket leveler indicator also.  I wanted to mow the upper pasture fence line so it would be easy to find.  I ended up spending a couple of hours mowing the entire upper pasture prime area (my new name for the soon to be fenced in area). I mowed along the creek and all over the bottom.  It was mowed late last year to a height of one foot.  I mowed it down to three inches.  I left the bunch grass higher as it runs next to the wheat field fence.  I saw lots of field mice and voles.  Zeke snagged a couple of them but spent most of his time tearing all over the place.  I had to keep calling him back.  I want to install two gates in that fence line. I will only be installing two sides of a rectangle and repairing a third.  I opted to enclose a bigger area.  I was going to build three separate upper bottom pastures eventually.  I decided to enclose the first two in one fell swoop.  I can go back later and subdivide the “upper bottom prime” pasture later.  

The mower did good work.  I had one metal part fall off!  It is on the front of the mower and helps hold the front skirt in place.  When it is not pouring down rain I plan on looking for it.  I did try and use a new app on the iPhone to figure out how many acres I am fencing in.  No go, user error.  I again proved that a Lifeproof case is water proof.  I also discovered that when the water is running off the screen and your hands are cold the iPhone won’t sense your touch. I finally just gave up.  
Annmarie wants me to install a cable to help hold, the already installed, gate leading into the wheat field.  I was thinking I would have to put in a new post but I might not have to do that.  I am going to try it.  I also need to install a cow panel over that gate so the sheep cannot get through it.  This has prompted me to make up a list of needed items to go into the fence budget.  The two 18 foot gates and 70 T-posts and 8 wooden post for the lower barley field are necessary.  The new 16 foot metal gate for the machine shop hay area is mandatory!   I will also be installing two rows of 1×12 along one wall side to prevent the cows from reaching through the supports there also.  At current prices that is $480 in gates, $335 in T-posts and $100 in wooden posts for $915 total.  I need at least another 125 t-posts for the upper pasture at $600. Five rolls of wire $315 and a bag of clips is around $200. Two more gates at $360 for prime pasture and one six foot gate for $90 for lower pasture.  I need about six cow panels at total cost of $150.   Grand total $2630.  Not bad only $130 over budget, only trouble is I didn’t allow any money for labor.  Good thing I work cheap!  This is why I am hitting the spring extravaganza sale on this upcoming Friday.  If I only get a 10% discount I will make my budget!  

Cows just want to be difficult.

Steve HardinLeave a comment
I have spent one week trying to get the cows organized.  They are not on board with this plan and have been thwarting every attempt to separate them.  The youngest calf is now almost eight months old and they all think milk straight from a tit is still necessary to sustain life.  They only nurse a couple of times a day but the poor cows are pregnant also and it is too much.  Gannon and I sorted the caves into the barn lot, the bull into the machine shop area and the female cows into orchard.  This put 150 feet of dead space between the mothers and calves.  No one liked this arrangement, there were some very vocal cows all night long.  The next morning the babies were still in the barn lot.  Now the barn lot was open to the upper pasture which is full of old not fixed fence (not secure). I was hoping that the cows would stay in the barn lot as they would be the closest to their mothers.  
Nope, Gannon found them out on the road by the school house.    He put them into the school house pasture, which they promptly got out of and into the lower pasture.  That dividing fence was just done last year but I had to go raise all the fences over the water last month and the cows just jump in the creek and wade up it.  The sheep refuse to get their feet wet!  Sometimes I think they think they are a cat.  I had not thought this would be an issue when I raised the fence.  So now the calves can get next to the mother’s dividing fence which let’s them nurse through the fence again!  I went to town and purchased a 240# supplemental feeding tub, 30% protein! vegetable matter only and placed it in with the female cows.  It took them a couple of days to figure it out.  Per the supplement directions the cows will eat 3/4 pound per day so it should last for three months. The babies should be born next month. 
A couple of days later the lower people gate got left open (not me) and the babies and bull got back into the machine shop area.  At least all three babies are in the same spot now.  We had to leave for the weekend but Sunday when we came back the bull was in the machine shop hay pile munching away contentedly.   I had a wire cow panel across it but he started lifting the middle and crawling under.  Now there are four T posts across the opening and panel is wired to them.  He went to the far end and found there was no anchor on the bottom of the T post.  He pushed it in and bent it while it stayed attached at the top of the post and proceeded to crawl under! I have it wired in two places at each post now.  The cows in general are forcing me to change my plans.  
PGG is having their Spring extravaganza sale this upcoming Friday and Saturday.  I plan on purchasing all my yearly supplies in one day at a 10-15% discount.  I even get to talk to some of the fence distributors. I might put in some metal corners using the fancy braces.  It is cheaper than three wooden posts and two cross braces.  I need to talk with someone about it.  I might just try it in one place this year and see how it does.  The real test is the animals.  I am going to take the trailer and fill it up!
My goal is going to be getting an area that is cow proof where the babies can go and not get to the mothers!  This has again prompted me to rearrange my fencing priorities.  I am going to have to do the upper pasture first.  The lower pasture needs about 100 feet of sheep fencing added to the upper half so the calves cannot reach through the fence and nurse.  That is not very much fence and totally do able this summer.  I am itching to get outside and get some fencing done.  Spring is here!

Outside chores during weather break.

Steve HardinLeave a comment
scrap metal pile on south side of machine shop.
 
Sunday, I had a couple of hours of decent weather and went out to work on straightening the used T posts I got from the scrap yard.  There were a couple I could not straighten.  I just tossed them in the scrap metal pile.  Every time I go outside and the ground is thawed out I pick up more scrap metal.  Sometimes I think it grows under the ground and just erupts from the soil when it is ready to be harvested.  Every spring I find lots of metal and start building piles all over the farm.  I work on it every time I am outside.  Sometimes 5-10 minutes other times a few hours of just picking up trash, old wood pieces and scrap metal.  It is starting to pay off, the place is looking much cleaner.  The scrap metal still astounds me in shear quantity.  I have five growing piles all around the farm not including the little pieces that get thrown in the rock cribs. 
Zeke is watching the cows. 

My T post pile consists of crooked and sorta straight.  The sorta straight ones are the ones I have bent back into shape (kinda) and I think they will be able to be pounded back into the ground without crumpling.  It is a slow process but I save $4 for every one I can use so I keep at it.  These will go down by the back creek for a subdivision of the lower bottom.  I have all the cord and wooden stakes to mark out a new fence line, but I am waiting until all the posts are ready and the ground is ready before putting up a string fence.  Why not just start pounding stakes in the ground?  The spacing is never right and the fence is not straight.  I use some wooden stakes and light nylon cord to mark the fence line then use a tape measure and some marking paint to paint a mark every 10 feet.  That is where the T posts go.  This lets me layout the design.  This fence line will have two jogs (bends) and two cow panels near the creek that will allow the animals to get water year round.  No troughs or buckets needed for watering.  I have managed to get every subdivided fence to touch water so far.  That is going to go away as I subdivide further up the creek.  Those will not have water readily available so we will just have to keep them open to the barn lot so the animals can come back and get water when needed.  

I have a fencing budget of $2000 and spray budget of $1000 for this year.  I will have to purchase some RoundUp this year to kill down the driveway and fence lines.  Last year I only used 2-4-D.  The animals have helped reduce our herbicide use dramatically.  I have held off purchasing any fencing supplies until the weather improves.  I am itching to get some fence done, but Mother Nature is not cooperating.  It will take 70 T posts, 8 wooden posts, two 18 foot or 20 foot gates and one 4x4x8 board to fix the fence out by the road around the old barley field.  It is falling over and will be much easier to repair before it is all crumpled up on the ground.  The old barley field already has 50% of the fence repaired.  If I can get the rest repaired then after the wheat is harvested we can hopefully run animals on it until it is ready to be replanted.  This will help us extend out the pasture ground.  After that the lower pasture addition will need one 6 foot metal gate.  The back fence on the orchard needs retightened and another two gates added.  Also it will take the addition of three H braces to be built.  Lastly is a new fence in the upper pasture just past the old well.  It will take the addition of two 16 foot metal gates and a bunch more used T posts that have not been straightened or collected from the scrap yard yet.  The scrap yard is collecting them and woven wire for me again.  Everyone else is trying to get rid of it and I keep adding more!

On a plus note my chickens just up and decided to start laying eggs again.  Who knows why, we are getting 6-12 eggs/day.  This is good news!  I am still not sure I will be positive again for the year.  After having to buy eggs in the grocery store I may have to raise the price again on a dozen farm fresh eggs.  I am going to hold off until later to recalculate the overall cost of production. 

Sheep chores all caught up.

Steve HardinLeave a comment
Saturday was catch up day.  My nephew came over and we went out to catch up on the sheep. Nice thing about going out early is they are still locked up in the barn.  We had multiple babies to tag and it was time to band the baby boys.  They were old enough that I should not have had any trouble banding them.  We keep the rubber bands in the house to protect them from the temperature extremes and sunlight.  After last year, we buy a new little bag of 100 bands every year.  We started with tagging all the babies.  We ended up with a couple of babies that had not been written down in the database.  After everyone was tagged we started catching all the little boys to make sure they were banded or neutered already.  No big surprise after we banded a few they were so much slower than everyone else we kept catching them!  We finally had to start separating out all the boys so we could tell who was already banded.  We did find one oops.  One of the first babies had an undescended testicle.  We could feel it under his skin but there was no way to band it as he had been banded before.  We wrote the tag number down so we could keep track of him. 
 
 Our ram did great last year all the babies are his.  He is still a little skittish and won’t let us touch him but he is a good breeder and we have been happy with all the babies this year.  We have 28 babies from 20 ewes with 1 ram for a total of approximately 49 sheep.  I have not entered all the tags into the spreadsheet and this count only counts the ewes that have birthed.  I believe we have 3 more ewes that still have not given birth. This sounds like an odd problem to have to not know how many animals you have, but the sheep are very hard to count.  I believe this is where the saying came from about counting sheep when you are trying to go to sleep.  It seems that just when you think you have the count right another sheep pops up or they move around and you have to start all over.  So we are close…
 
After we finished up with the sheep we moved over two ton of hay from the machine shop into the barn.  We feed the sheep and horses from the barn and the cows from the machine shop.  The cows have been going into the machine shop and eating the hay from the side over a concrete wall.  They had eight bales all torn open.  We moved the hay out of reach and filled the cattle feeders.  There is going to be just enough hay to get us through the winter.  I think we will need 15 ton for this next winter. 
 

Snow gone in two days!

Steve HardinLeave a comment



Rebuilt rock crib.

I went to all that trouble to move the snow and it is gone!  No more snow.  In our world this sudden warming can be quite the problem.  I have four fences that go across the creek.  When we went to bed last night there was a strong chinook wind blowing.  The back creek was still covered in snow and there was no running water in it.  As soon as I got up this morning I turned on the back porch light to see if the creek was running and indeed it was.  This means the fences have to be lifted out of the creek bed.  They have to sit directly on the creek bed when there is no water present or the sheep crawl under them.  The sheep will jump the creek and drink from it but they will not wade through it to crawl under a fence.  I anticipated this not being as easy as it sounds.  At the first crossing I ended up refilling about half the rock crib and retightening some upper fencing before even pulling the panels out of the creek.  I ended up fixing three sections of fence, repairing two rock cribs and lifting fence panels from four separate creek crossings. 



Poop covered dog!  Does he looked ashamed?

Zeke snuck away while I was working.  I called but he stayed gone for over 30 minutes.  When he came back it looked like someone had rubbed cow poop over his entire body!  The smell was awful.  He had to stay kinda close the rest of the time outside.  Not too close due to the smell.  After the creek crossings were fixed we walked down to the school house to look at the back irrigation ditch.  The horses on the school house pasture have eroded part of the ditch wall and it is leaking into the pasture.   Down near the school house it is just running out into the pasture.  I need to get down there with the tractor and dig some more ditch.  The trouble is it is very muddy and slick and I am not sure the tractor would do well. It needs to dry out some first.  The trouble with that is I don’t want the weather to dry out until late spring.  I want us to get snow or rain. 

 
There is a block in the creek from the apple tree.  One of the large dead branches fell down across the creek and this is forming a natural dam.  All the little branches and leaves and twigs just pack together and form a watertight barrier.  In the summer I am going to have to clear this out with the chain saw and tractor.  I can cut the branches up and snag them out of the creek with the tractor.  This is going to be an impressive dam if the creek doubles in water output. 
 
I found the remains of another chicken coop?  On the back hillside, down by the large apple tree the skeleton and wire frame from a coop was partially buried.  It was not very big maybe 12 square feet.  I found it when I was making a scrap pile.  Now that I think of it there was a lot of loose metal laying around.  I wonder if there was not an old burn pile there at one time and someone was burning the wood out of the coop?  I bet that was the reason for its location.  I now have another metal pile that will need to be picked up.  There is one down pas the cattails on the lower pasture also.  It is a lot easier to find piles of metal than individual pieces in the summer when the grass is actively growing. 
 
I had to give the dog a bath when we went in, so he is currently sulking up on the breeze porch.  He can pretend he is lord of all that is visible and snub me at the same time, double points.