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!

Since the cows got out fencing has again reared its ugly head.  I have taken a club and am attempting to beat it back into submission.  Annmarie thought the cows were getting out right next to the road so I spent 7 hours cleaning up the fence line (lousy 100 feet), removing each strand and retightening it, patching the old sheep fencing and repairing it where I could.  It is in the upper 90s these last two days.  It is miserable.  I finished that all up today and the fence looks great, good for another 5-10 years with me doing nothing to it.  The deer are going to be pissed as there were two different deer highways crossing the downed fence. 

I happened to be driving along the CRP to the house and thought I might check the interior fence going into the hay pasture.  The gentleman leasing the pasture had already tilled the ground.  I drove up to the dried creek and found a huge gaping hole!  The cows did not crawl through the fence I just spent 7 hours repairing.  They just walked up the dried creek or went through the hole in the fence next to the creek.  I another three hours dragging the panels back in place over the creek and repairing the fence on both sides of the creek.  The power company had pulled the meter out of the old pump junction box and disconnected the transformer from the power line.  They used to back up the creek and install a pump into the back creek and irrigate the pasture.  There is a whole row of 4 inch aluminum pipe alongside the fence.  I need to empty the irrigation pipe trailer and start snagging all the pipe I have found since last year.  I am still trying to get it all into one location so we can get it repaired or scrapped. 

I ended up retightening about 60% of the sheep wire in that whole fence line.  It looks a lot better, but the upper three strands of barb wire need to be tightened also.  The fence bordering the CRP along the upper pasture has multiple low spots were the deer have created their own crossings.  The deer are lazy and don’t want to jump over the fence.  Instead, they crawl through the fence and push it apart in the process. 

One of the hens has decided to sit on some eggs, so I am letting her.  We should know in 21 days if this works out or not.  We will see if she can stay on top of them.  If they hatch I will put them and her into the baby area alone so no one can pick on them.  More fencing tomorrow, I will add some more sheep fencing up at the cattle guard and fix our four gates so they open and close easily and attach boards to the bottoms of the gates so the sheep cannot crawl under them.