fences

Auction wins

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Blame Gingerman, he sent me a link to a local farm auction out of Hermiston and I needed a lot of stuff they had. It turns out that I did not need it as bad as other local people because I went from spending almost $6500 to only $1500 in the last thirty minutes of the auction! He had told me that everyone waits until the last minute to bid and he was not wrong. I really had my heart set on a mini-excavator! It was brand new with only 0.3 hours on it. Knew it would cost about $6k, I quit bidding after $3k and it sold for $3.5k. If I had kept bidding I suspect the price would have kept increasing.

I ended up with two, eight foot tall orchard ladders, two old round water troughs that cannot hold water, one new small tall water trough, a couple of hundred feet of brand new lay flat hose with irrigation fittings already on them and two self contained gates. The hose was the most expensive thing in the pile. We are going to cut the bottom out of the two large round troughs and use them in the garden area. The larger one is going to be solely for the growing of asparagus! We want the bottom cut out so the plants can dig down into the ground if they want. I am not sure what we are putting in the other one. The small one will go in with our backyard garden collection. It will get something edible planted in it. The two gates were necessary to get the barn lot set up correctly. The cows and sheep always go down to the spring area and hole up and refuse to come out. It is painful to get them through the gate. We have talked about a fence across the mouth of that area for years. So I installed two gates, both six feet on either end of the opening and made a large removable wire gate. So the entire middle of the fence can be moved for vehicle access. We can also just put the horse over there when we are sorting and she won’t be able to “help”. I spent Saturday morning getting the fence installed and the gates adjusted. The Gingerman helped me put a temporary repair on the back hillside gate so that it is a solid fence. This way the alpaca cannot get out and the sheep can wander around on the lower part of the hill and not sneak out. They would have found the hole, guaranteed.

We then had to drive over to Hermiston and take down the temporary fence we have to install on the decorative fence so the sheep will actually stay in the pasture. It’s Redbrand woven four foot fencing and a full roll weighs about 220#. It is hard to load safely in the back of the pickup alone, at least for me. It took us about 20 minutes and we will save the two precut sections for next year again. We attach it with zip ties so they can just be cut to remove it.

I had to feed the sheep as they had eaten everything in the barn and they are still a little jumpy. So I spent about 20 minutes sitting on a bale of hay talking to them. We always talk to them when we are out in the barn. It helps get them accustomed to humans and more specifically to us. In a month they will only associate us with food and all will be right. They get so pushy that we have to push them out of the barn, shut the door, feed then open the door so they can rush in and beat their neighbor to the good stuff. By Christmas we will be locking them up every night which means someone has to go out first thing in the morning and check for lambs and let them out of the barn.

We ate our Sunchokes for the first time this weekend. It is easy to see why they are a potato substitute. I added them to a stew with meat, carrots, onions, sweet potatoes, yellow potatoes and sunchokes. It tasted very good. We will try a different version next time we eat them.

Spring is coming, maybe

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Every year without fail the snow melts in the mountains when it warms up and the back creek starts up and eventually when the winter runoff is completed it dries up again. This cycle happens every year and one would think that I would plan better for the changes but they always seem to catch me by surprise. I knew the back creek had started up and I knew that it would get deeper eventually. The real trick to being a procrastinator is knowing when it is essential that something be done. This “art” takes some dedication and a real zen type sense of impending doom.

I came home from work on Monday evening and the back creek was roaring! The temperature had gotten to over 50 degrees F after all that snow. I had failed to accurately predict when the runoff was going to occur, this seems to be an annual problem. I had Mr Professional come out with me and we both stood on each side of the roaring water and worked to pull the panels out of the water. The panels had already started to collect debris and back the water up even higher. The only real downside to this endeavor is that you have to climb out to the middle of the raging stream while staying on the fence above the water and remove the metal clip that holds the middle of the panel in place. Without releasing this clip you cannot lift the panel out of the water or remove it completely. It is a crucial part of the operation yet you cannot stare at the moving water as you are looking down or you will start to develop vertigo. You must maintain a hyper awareness to your surrounding so you don’t accidentally let go and end up in the water. We managed to get the only two crossings out of the water. I pulled two others and just don’t use them much and if I do I only use them in the spring and pull them up in the summer. I need the two near the house and don’t seem able to remove them. I do need to pull them out of the DRY creek bed the first week of January. I say this now but for the last ten years I have scrambled in the dark or late evening to pull them out of a raging waterway, maybe I have learned?

Flood recovery is slow as it’s not the only thing left to do

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It’s Memorial Day weekend and I had plans to fix my haying problems and fix some fence.  I managed to get “some” fence fixed and did not fix my haying problem.  Friday was very nice and I figured I was going to get loads of stuff done.

I managed to tear apart and rebuild both spring crossings in the yard.  They are now dog proof.  On the plus side, both of these crossings faired very well.  The panels lifted and bowed and moved out of the way of the water.  I will be making every crossing just like these two.  I managed to fix both crossings in under four hours.  I took some measurements for the span down by the propane tank (big picture below).  Annmarie is going to make me some plans for a new bridge.  She is making me plans for trusses, I will build two trusses and install them onto my concrete footings I will be installing then I will be bolting them down to the concrete.  I am going to pour “L” shaped footings so that the truss will rest on the lower L part and push against the upright part.  I will install two large bolts so I can bolt it down.  I will be using all thread, I love that stuff then I can just stuff it down into the concrete.

I did go up and tried to turn the hay in the upper prime field.  It was full of mud, I finally gave up and just started to shove the grass into large piles.  I have a set of manure forks that clamp onto the bucket coming.  I ordered them last week after the flood.  I think we will just burn the piles in place in a couple of weeks if it ever quits raining. I tried to go into the upper prime squared field but it still had water running through it.  I cleaned out the culvert and ended up having to dig out the ditch in about five places to get all the water flowing into designated channels.  I will need to wait a couple of days and go up there and try it again.  I think I may be able to salvage at least 2 acres of grass that did not get mud in it.  But if the rain keeps up it is going to start rotting on me.

The horses LOVE this no fence world as they are gorging themselves on all you can eat grass from all over the farm including my ruined hay fields.  They are so full that both of them were laying down and taking naps in the shade.  So far none of the dogs have escaped the yard after my repairs and they have had ample opportunity over the last three days.  

Yesterday, I decided to focus on our yard.  Sometimes the house needs to be prioritized also and it was time to knock everything down.  I spent the day on the weed eater.  I had to watch a YouTube video to figure out how to get the weed eater to work.  I have to do it every spring as I always forget the ins and outs and after pulling it 50 times in an effort to get it started I figured some help was warranted even if it was unwanted.  The YouTube lady had me up and running in under five minutes!  I also trimmed our lilac bush and some other bush we had in the back that was trying to take over the gate area.  I was getting tired of fighting the plants to get in and out of the back gate.  I burned over 1/2 gallon of gas in the weed eater getting the hillside cleaned off.  I forget how my body feels after five hours of using the weed eater.  My single biggest complaint is what the vibrations do to my hands, they ache.  I love getting old.

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Today, Annmarie and I went out to work on the lavender patch.  I dug about 14 rocks out of the patch that I had not removed and cleaned up a pile of ash.  Annmarie wondered how we were ready if I had not done all the prep.  I reiterated that one cannot have all the prep work done ahead of time and it was not very much.  She laid out the ground cloth while I carried in the fake bark.  We have colored recycled shredded tires.  I put out 1200 pound of the stuff and it didn’t even make a dent!  We quit laying out ground cloth because I did not want the wind to tear it all up and we ordered another 10k# of recycled tires.  It will be here in 10-14 days.  The nice part was I just scooped it up into a five gallon bucket by hand and spread it out with the bucket.  It worked great and stopped me from having to try and rake it out over the ground cloth.

Once we ran out of that I went out to help Mr Professional, it was supposed to rain so he was not going to spray.  Instead we took the spare wood out to the old chicken coop.  This meant he pulled the down fence mess off of the culvert so we could drive the trailer and pickup across.  Unfortunately, this exposed the torn out corner near the culvert.  It was not bad only a couple of feet but enough that the trailer was not going to get past.  I had moved some rocks into the barn lot that I was going to use on the flat spot I made behind the barn.  I had expressly collected huge rocks as that was what I wanted to go there.  So we used those rocks to fill in the hole that allowed us to drive the trailer across the culvert.

While he was getting ready to unload the wood, he had to clear a spot I tried to straighten out the Alcatraz water area, I cleaned off the grass on the side that was supposed to allow water in and then chained onto it.  I moved it about two feet before it hit resistance and I just started sliding all over the muddy hillside.  I need it to actually dry out for a few days.  We unloaded the wood, while it started to rain again.  We staged about 20 pieces of blue pine for the bathroom on the front porch.  The plan is to start working on the bathroom for a few hours every evening and get it done!  I so want a second bathroom and our bathroom lights came on Friday.  The rosettes I ordered to go around the mirror came but they only had 1/2” nails with them and I wanted at least 1.25”.  I ended up ordering another 6 rosettes from a different place with longer nails.  These are all hand forged and come with 1.25” nails to hold them in place.  They will hopefully be here this week so I can install them and remove the board I have propped across the entire room leaning onto the mirror.

I did go out into the orchard after we finished with the ground cloth.  I realized that the culvert was still plugged up and it was causing water to run across the orchard.  I spent an hour hand digging and pulling out weeds and branches from the ditch until I got the backlog down and the channel cleared out for 20 feet.  I then went down to where the water ran under/through the far fence.  Ouch, there is a three foot drop off that is about 14’ wide.  I am going to have to just cut the fence, install two H braces on either side, put a cable across the top and hang cow panels down.  I can fill up the one side with large rocks but I am running out of easy access to large rock piles.  I have one rock pile in the orchard that I  had been building up from all over the orchard.  I think I can hang some weights on the panels so that the cows cannot lift them but if the water rushes by again it will just lift the panels.  This is my new plan, all water crossings need to be able to “float” out of the way if we ever get flooding again.  Annmarie tells me that we beat a record rainfall set in 1894 with this flood on this day.  I would believe it but that surely does not help when you are cleaning up.  As always, we are grateful and fortunate that none of the houses or buildings were damaged.  We are just cleaning up fences and losing hay, less than $20K dollars worth of damage.  The amount of work it will take to fix it is the hard part, that took several years to install.  On the plus side our bridge for the barn lot survived!  I just have to hook onto it with the tractor and pull it back.  I will have to find another extra railroad tie as I was pretty much the only one who could drive the tractor across the four foot bridge.  You cannot get a straight shot at it so it makes it very hard.  I am making a list of more things to by now.

I even went down to the barn lot crossing and fished out all the blocks today.  It was a mess.  I am going to buy another 200 blocks and then rip out what is currently installed and replace them all.  I want to extend the blocks out along the sides and then stick the crossing on top of the blocks, this should gain me another foot of clearance and prevent the bridge from being eroded out.  I am fine with it being lifted off its footings as this is a safety feature.  This many blocks will take 3-4 people about a day to install.  Once those are in and the bridge is back in place then I can worry about getting the fence back in place.  It’s going to be a long summer.

I am going to have to focus on the cross fences above first to keep the animals out of the hay fields.  So that is the next priority project, once I have those done we can sort the cows and pull the young meat heifers off of the main herd and then let the bull back in with the cows.  The steers and heifers can go in the upper prime pasture and we will get two fences between the bull and them.