fencing

Farm projects progressing

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The siding contractor is done with the siding. We just need our gutter fixed and a screen replaced. Mr Rainman has been working on getting our porch ceiling painted. He used a thick primer to fill in the gaps between the boards. We thought about painting it white but were afraid it would be hard to match our siding. Annmarie remembered the porch ceiling being blue when she was a kid. I had to look up why blue and the reasons vary quite a bit. It was supposed to keep away evil spirits, it represented the sky so it made the porch feel bigger and it repelled bugs. We are going with the first one.

Primer done
First coat

The annual barn clean out has been happening over the last two weekends. Mr Rainman started it by getting a main path dug all the way through the barn (5 hours). I have worked on it two more days a four hour day and a three hour day. We have managed to get most of the barn dug out in 12 hours! This used to take 40-60 hours to do. We started earlier this year and it is really wet still inside the barn, so there are no hard sheets of dried stuff. It is scrap-able with the manure forks. I took the forks off yesterday and used the bucket to scrape the muddy material loose and then just leave it to dry for a while. Mr Rainman had ambitions of finishing it next week. The rest all needs to be hand dug. It should take about six hours.

Beginning spot

We will have gotten the whole thing done in under 20 hours which is pretty amazing. I keep getting better and better with the little John Deere tractor. I think the real reason is I don’t want to get off and pitch fork as much crap as I used to, before becoming more aged. I am getting more efficient as I age!

We have been having some trouble with random people coming down the driveway. We had installed a ring camera this year and are now having to monitor it. For some reason we have someone on a motorcycle who keeps coming onto the property. Annmarie is making another sign to do down by the driveway cattle guard. Once we have the gazebo up we are going to install a 16’ gate across the driveway down by the first house. Initially, we are going to keep the gate open and only close it when we work the animals. If we keep getting unknown visitors we may have to install a solar automatic opener with a battery backup. This will force everyone to stop and push a button to open the gate. If we install an auto gate opener we will bury an auto sensor from our side that will open the gate so you can leave. I am hoping that we won’t have to do that but when we install the manual gate I will weld new hinges on the gate and install a double post and offset post for latching. This will make the installation of an auto opener very easy.

We got the side fence temporarily back up so the dogs can no longer steal cat food or harass the cats. This week we will start in on the gazebo! This is our next big project. I am thinking it will take us about six weeks to get it all up in the air. We will still need to finish the floor inside, create countertops and an entrance cover and ramp. For now just getting it up with the roof on it is the goal this year.

I had to order more parts for the micro hay baler. I needed another $500 worth of parts and am probably going to have to pop off the wheel on one side to be able to reach all of the gears. I will definitely be ordering a spare chain and will only allow myself to take out links one time before just replacing it. The chain only costs $150, all of the gears are over $2k.

Cows can be painful

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The cows are painful sometimes. The teenagers are by far and away the worst! They jumped the fence on the back hillside on both sides and got out into the unfenced area on the back hillside. They have been there for about 2.5 weeks as they just run roughshod over the fence so it is useless to push them back. They want to hang out near the momma and baby cows so this was working. I say was because when I came home Friday the five cows were out in the wheat field down by our cattle guard. We have no clue how they got there. I think they walked all the way down the length of the farm and got out onto the gravel road then came back into the wheat field and walked down to the barn lot. I opened the gate into our house area in the hopes that they would come into it, nope, they walked past the open gate and headed back down the length of the property.

I discovered that I can indeed drive the Kubota tractor with a broken foot. I can use the hand lever on the left to set the speed and the tractor slows down well enough on its own that I don’t need to use the brakes. So I drove out around the field on the pavement and came in from the top and went back on the road alongside the wheat field. Annmarie came out and opened up more gates so we could get them behind a fence. We got them into the car area then pushed them out into a fenced field down by Mother-in-Law’s house. This meant that Mr Rainman and I were going to have to fix fence on the back hillside even though we have other things to do. Since I can drive the tractor I would do that so we can carry all of the fencing supplies. I can also do the splices in the fence.

Mr Rainman sprayed some Roundup in a few places around our back elevated garden beds. The gravel needs to not be full of weeds. Then we got ready to go fencing. We filled up the area behind the bucket with wooden stays but we can only carry about 15 stays that way. If we need a bunch of stays we will dump off fencing stuff then use the tractor forks to pick up a couple of hundred stays. As we were crossing the back creek we spotted another pile of wooden stays from a previous fencing job (common issue, as fencing extra stuff tends to stay close to an old job). This was noted in case we needed more we would not have to go to the machine shed. Mr Rainman was able to slap on fence tighteners and crank them down, cut the fence and then it was ready for me. I was able to park close to the site, hop off the tractor and put on my peg leg. The peg leg sounds cool, it is cool, as it allows me to use both hands unobstructed but it takes a ton of energy and effort. So I spliced the fence back together and Mr Rainman installed wooden stays and replaced any missing stay staples and T-post clips. The cows had a path through the fence down by the creek so it got extra wooden stays. The outer hillside fence is nice and tight!

We started to drive across the top of the field and realized that I had never installed stays along all of the top fence. So he started installing them when the Gingerman showed up with cold Gatorade and assistance. Him and I went and snagged all of the extra wooden stays from the bottom of the hill. We drove back up the hill and they started to install them into the fence separating out the CRP. They got all the way across the top except we were 8 fence stays short to make it to the gate.

The inner hillside fence was in shambles. They had torn off the top three rows of smooth fence. So Mr Rainman again slapped the tighteners on it and I jumped down and spliced it together. Honestly, fencing takes practice and after all the years on the farm I know how to fence. While I did that they worked on T-post clips and Mr Rainman pulled wire for us to add a higher wire to the upper 2/3 of the fence. It’s the flat section of the fence and the spot where the cows and sheep like to jump over the fence. The fence is over 50” now and very tight so I am hopeful the cows cannot jump it, or it at least appears to be an actual barrier. I ended up walking downhill halfway putting on clips. This was a huge mistake! I had to peg leg it up half the hill and thought I was going to die by the time I got to the tractor. My good leg and hip were killing me and I had to keep stopping to take a rest.

Mr Rainman had been using the DeWalt Fence stapler the whole time. I had expected him to trade off with the Gingerman occasionally but he was not having it. The machine is amazing. They stapled 30 posts in under 30 minutes. It is a definite time saver, but it beats you up! It has a kick, it’s heavy and awkward. He kept using it until his hand cramped up and he could not move his fingers! The Gingerman got to finish up with the stapler.

By the time we got down to the house I parked as close as I could to the gate, got off the tractor, installed the peg leg on and came into the house. I sat down in the kitchen, polished off the chips and dip from the 4th (we only make chips and dip on the major federal holidays and the Super Bowl). I showered and then crawled into bed for an hour and a half nap. I was exhausted. Milo has learned to take naps with me since I have been home so he sacked out with me for that time.

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.

Call the ambulance…

Steve Hardin1 Comment

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.