fencing

Even more fencing on field #1

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Today went a lot better than yesterday. Mr Rainman and I installed the wife’s seat covers in her car. Wow, this is not an intuitive or easy job. It took us 75 minutes with both of us working on it and we never would have gotten it done if Mr Rainman had not taken the time to read the directions! I was gonna wing it! Nope, there are a lot of disconnect this one thing, leave off or detach and then put back after you have fished the straps past. Mr Rainman did bleed on some of the covers but I think I got all of the blood wiped up so wife won’t notice. The underside of the seats have some sharp areas. Since we could not get it in under 60 minutes the wife had to drive my lovely two door color car. Luckily, there were not going to be any passengers as the passenger door handle is still missing. I don’t think I will ever replace that handle, it’s superfluous.

I did order a new inside door handle for the pickup today. It’s just too hard to shut the door with no handle. The handle broke off at both screw attachment locations. I am hoping the $25 replacement will last another ten years. My left thumb is healing up nicely, the divot I took out with the electric shears has filled in and I just have an eraser sized scab left. I was sure I was going to have an upside down U forever on my thumb.

I have not been able to catch or kill a coyote yet. Today, we had the rifle with us the entire time and did not see a coyote. I have started to look into thermal imaging binoculars and scopes but they are expensive. Plus, it looks like the scopes all want to go on a picatinny rail and none of my hunting rifles have that. So I am still looking into it. This is a very dumb problem.

We need to get rid of some sheep. I took some pictures today and posted them for sale on Craigslist. We will see how that goes. I am going to email the auction site. I tried calling but their voicemail was full.

Both of my helpers came out to work on the fence in field #1. We got all of the wooden H brace cross pieces up and got one of the H braces fitted with high tension wire. We ran out of wire from our used stash but Mr Rainman had left with the Kubota tractor and it has the forks on it so we can just slip the full roll of wire onto a pallet fork and hold it in the air. This should make getting a piece off of the appropriate size easy. Instead we switched to installing T-posts with the tractor. The ground is fairly rock free and after two rains the ground is a lot softer than it was earlier in the summer. I only had to pound it about ten posts total with the tractor bucket. The rest I could just push in with the bucket (full of gravel and 150# of steel weights on the driver side of the push bucket. The Apprentice and I kept it up till about 1300. We also got the holes drilled for the gate so it can be installed next. I have learned that there are differing priorities for the Apprentice. When I asked the Apprentice why she was not wearing leather gloves when handling the T-posts and inserting them into the bucket driver I was informed that a weird suntan was appearing around her wrists. She did eventually put on some gloves as the sun heated the T-posts up enough they were too hot to handle. I refrained from commenting. We are still having grip exercise discussions every day she works. I keep telling her she needs to be able to handle tools for 8+ hours a day.

Fencing proceeds despite communication barriers

Steve Hardin1 Comment

Today the plan was to actually get some posts in the ground and get all of the needed materials to their appropriate locations. This proved much harder than one would assume as the day progressed. Both Mr Rainman and the Apprentice came out today to help with fencing. It took us a half an hour to gather tools and the rest of the railroad ties we needed. As the Apprentice and I got to the barn lot and were loading up large cedar posts to be the other half of an H brace with a railroad tie, I realized we needed more tools. I texted Mr Rainman and after the third text I realized that I just needed to walk over to the machine shed and help load more tools. We almost forgot the rifle, varmit getter. We loaded up 12- 16’x2”x8” rough cut boards onto the Kubota forks to use as the cross pieces for the H braces. That was almost too much weight to safely carry down the fields. The tractor back end kept bouncing off the ground when the path got too bumpy.

The plan was for Mr Rainman and I to start setting railroad ties after we drilled out the 12” holes. We had used the 6” auger yesterday to put in all of the holes and the plan was to widen the holes that needed railroad ties today. The field has dirt and not many rocks where we were digging but the ground has a lot of clay in it and can get very hard. Usually the big auger will just sit on top of the dirt and not cut down into it. It’s better since I welded the holder onto the arm and we stack tractor weights on it. We only had to use 100# of weights today.

The plan was to send the Apprentice back to the fence supply pile for a gate, there were three places on the farm she could find extra railroad ties, she needed to grab used T-posts from another spot and then grab the high tension wire that was on the ground near a culvert. I also have blocked off the wheat field access, I just covered it up with woven wire. This proved very problematic. You have to drive all the way down to field #3 to get out into the wheat field road before you can then drive up alongside the fields and get out onto the gravel road. We had to put one railroad tie on that fence alongside the road. She needed to deliver that said post. I thought I had explained the correct path. When she showed up in field #1 with the post and asked me how to get to the hole I had to reiterate all of the instructions, except this time she did not have to find the railroad tie, she had that. The tie got delivered to the correct spot and then she was supposed to get used T posts and the high tension wire.

Mr Rainman and I managed to get almost all of the railroad ties and cedar posts set when I asked him if he could see the Apprentice. Nope, it turns out that she drove past the used pile of T-posts six times and missed them every time. She had to drive down to the house and dig into the used post pile we have behind the grain bins.

Mr Rainman had to run to the house for a break so I asked him to grab a gate behind the grain bins. He comes rattling down the field with this super fancy very nice gate, not the gate from behind the grain bins. He states that I told him to go down to four corners and get that gate. You could not have picked a further spot from where we were fencing! He had to drive back and drop it off and get the gate we needed from behind the grain bins.

The only consistency here is me. I was the one giving instructions. There may have been some ambiguity present that I did not realize was present! The Apprentice and I got four sets of H braces built. She kept after it. As we were putting in the high tension tighteners she was having trouble using the fencing pliers, no grip strength. I gave her shit for not using the grip strengthener exercise I had told her about. She wants to be a farrier and will need to be able to hold onto the tools even when tired. She then voiced that she has been hurting all over her body since starting to work for me! Her hands hurt, her feet, her legs, her arms and her back all hurt all of the time! I laughed and told her mine do also but we still have to get stuff done. Say what you will, but the Apprentice just keeps coming back for more work. She digs in and just works at it until it is completed. You simply cannot ask for more and it is nice knowing she shows up to getter done. In a month, she goes off to school, so I will be keeping her as busy as possible until then.

Big surprise, we did not see a coyote that could be shot at. There was one across the street on the neighbors place but it was gone in about five seconds. I was up at 0115 due to the puppy barking, I went outside with a flashlight, suppressed 22 pistol and two extra clips to check on the ewe carcass we had left in the orchard, nothing there.

Fencing again

Steve HardinLeave a comment

The weekend was another one of those catch up ones. We ended up doing the things that had been put off but still needed to be done for various reasons. These weekends don’t feel as productive to me but they have to be done.

The Apprentice came out early Saturday and we prepped for fencing. This meant greasing the John Deere. This was a job I thought she might know how to do. The Apprentice assured me she had driven a large tractor before, a huge tractor. Yes, she had driven it but had not ever greased the fittings before. We ended up with grease on some things that were not fittings, but together we managed to get it done. We ended up laying out T posts and wooden stays all round field #1. We ran out of wooden stays! So I ended up splitting some of our own from the old cedar posts I had kept on the farm. I was able to get three stays from every post. I ended up breaking two shingle hammers doing it. I need to use the hand axe instead to get a weightier hit when splitting the post. I think I have enough posts left to split at least another 100 stays. After that I will have to buy some more. I always forget that the prep work for the fence is about half the install time. It takes a lot of time to measure and toss out all of the needed items. Doing this makes the fence go up a lot faster when the actual build begins. We even drove in some T posts by hand. This was not a job that the Apprentice does well. But she killed it when it came time to digging out the barn. Different muscles were used in each action. The post pounding muscles need a lot more work.

We spent most of Sunday out in the orchard. We had to pick the nectarines but they were not quite ripe. There was a huge storm coming into California and was supposed to bring potential flood levels of rain. The branches were already breaking on the nectarine tree so I figured it would be prudent to pick them now before the rain and storm ruined them. We tossed all of the tiny ones and any that had been eaten by earwigs over the fence for the cows and sheep to eat. We tossed out a lot of fruit and still ended up taking about 60# into the house and spreading it all over the dining room table to ripen over the next 1-2 weeks. I filled the entire table and was glad we fed the marginal stuff to the animals.

I even ended up going over to our Italian plum tree and tossing about 20# of fruit from the lower part of the tree over to the animals also. The branches were bending under the weight of all of the fruit. The pastures are getting pretty dry, we are a desert climate so I opened up the orchard for the cows and sheep after the Apprentice and I moved T posts and fencing wrap around all of the trees and raised it up back to it’s original high level. The cows still came in and reached up and ate all of the leaves, fruit and small branches they could reach. This has raised the branch level up significantly on all of the trees. There are still more Italian plums than we can safely eat left on the tree. This does not include the little yellow plums up in field #4 that should be ripe around the same time. The Asian pears are still not ripe yet and the fruit is very small this year. I will probably need to thin them harder next year to get a bigger pear.

The last half of Sunday was spent pounding posts into the ground. We even hooked up the post hole auger and switched out the 12” auger for the 6” auger. It was supposed to rain and I figured if I could get the 6” hole completed then the 12” auger should just follow the hole and tear it up. It just sits on the top of the dirt when it is super dry so following a hole should make it easy. We also put on the Texas T-post driving tool and filled the tractor bucket with gravel and 150# of steel tractor weights. We did manage to get some of the T-posts pounded in with the tractor. We also bent several of the posts in an attempt to use the tractor to pound them in. The heavier T posts make using the tractor doable.

Barn dig out happening

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I happened to have Tuesday off this week so I spent it fencing! I need to dig some fence post holes but the dead of summer is the wrong time for this to happen. I pulled on the broken railroad tie and fenced over the gate opening. I drove in T posts on either side of the railroad tie and wired it to them. Then I was able to drive in three T posts over the opening. I stretched out fence and tightened it all down. I am now about half way down the fence alongside the wheat field. I am going to continue the fence repair along the road next. This means I will only need to install one new section of fence along the creek side. I need the animals to get into field #1 to eat, half the field is still green due to subterranean water. I need about three days with a helper to get this done. Alone takes about 125% more time. Some things just take longer alone.

Thursday, Mr Flow came out for a couple of hours and dug out the chicken coop. I went and bought more wood pellets to put in there. I use the deep litter method and only dig it out once a year. The wood pellets work great to absorb moisture and keep the smell down. I get the cheapest kind they have, made here in Reith.

The plan on Friday was for him to come out and help me shear the last three alpaca. Nope, he got sick and called off around starting time. I cannot shear the alpaca alone, it takes at least two people and when they are not cooperating that is a hard two. I decided that I might as well start in on digging out the barn as it needed to be done also. It took a couple of hours to tear apart all of the panels and drag them outside. I have to leave one section as it is permanently attached to the wall. The sheep kept jumping over two gates so I created permanent panels to stop that and they cannot be removed.

I managed to get the manure forks installed on the John Deere tractor bucket and started digging out the barn. The tractor is small enough to get in and out of the barn. After two days of digging it out I am about 60% completed and I have only been at it about 7 hours so far. Yesterday, the tractor overtemp light came on. I ended up having to blow down the entire tractor, clean out the radiator and I even took out the air filter and cleaned it out. The tractor has two air filters, one inside the other and the inner was clean. Once I had it all cleaned out and filled with fuel I was able to go right back to digging out the barn. I have it dug out far enough I have to use the pitchfork and shovel out the edges and near the feeders. I just toss it into the middle and scoop it up with the tractor. For some reason I did not use a hat, just a do rag on my head and by that evening I had a lot of sun on my face! The horse has been bugging me while I am doing this so I took the time to give her a total brush down and brushed out her mane and tail. She just stands there and lets me do it.

Annmarie sent me a link from someone who wants to work before going to college. So far, in two days I have not been able to connect or get a commitment. I am hopeful I can as I would like them to help me with the alpaca. I am hopeful they will reach out on Sunday. She also sent me some information on old equipment for sale, yard ornament type. The exact same manure spreader that I already have two of was for sale! I called and got the third one! I will now have enough parts to get one going for sure. I had to back the trailer up to it, toss down the ramps and come a long it into the back of the trailer. It took about 30 minutes to get it onto the trailer. I will pick it off with the tractor forks. It will be a lot easier that way! She had an old 10’ hay rake but honestly it makes the piles too big for my baler and I am looking at putting less money into the farm not more.

One of the staff at the hospital had asked if her son’s could come out and shoot at the coyotes. I totally agreed to that. They have been out several times in the last week without coyote success. They are working on the pigeon problem. We had none this spring and now have about ten. They multiply rapidly if not kept in check. We are starting to have problems with ring neck doves again also. They are pushing out the native doves. One of the boys, now called Mr Hornet Tamer, has been walking all over the property scouting coyotes. He has found their crossing points and two old dens so far. Unfortunately for him, he also found the hornets living in one of the gates. The gates are metal tubes and the hornets love building nests in them. I usually pay attention and just open the gate quickly. He got popped several times and then called his mom to tell her he was going to the ER. She made him drive back out to me while I was building fence. Nah, he just needed some Benadryl. He slept most of the next day I am told. He did come out later in the week!

Predators 8/ Farm 1

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Friday I went up to field #3 first thing in the morning to attempt to call the coyote in. I am using the new electronic call I got this week. I hung out for about an hour and did not see a single coyote. The quail did not see me as I was hiding behind the cattle feeder. The sheep ran by without seeing me either, yet no coyote showed up. I went down and picked wild blackberries for a little over an hour. I filled all my containers I had brought. I only picked two patches and skipped another three. It was starting to warm up and the hornets like the berries when it gets warm. I went inside and washed them all off and then repacked them into individual bags and froze them. I ended up with 25 snack size bags full. Annmarie uses a single frozen bag every morning in her breakfast smoothie. I try and collect them for her and I will need to collect more in 2 and 4 cup quantities so we can make pie and cobbler throughout the year.

I got all the tools together to go up and work on the fence surrounding field #1. It is a green seven acre field that the sheep and cows need to get into so they can eat for a few more weeks. I had the tractor bucket full of tools and wire and stays to drive up there. Of course I did not take a rifle, there is no place to put it on the tractor, I would have to hold it the entire time. Of course I saw two coyotes running out of field #3 and a dead lamb in the field. They had just killed it and it was almost noon! I dumped off the supplies and went back to the house to get the rifle and call. I spent another three hours trying to call them back and had no luck. We have now decided to lock the sheep into the barn lot and feed them last years hay from the machine shed.

This is honestly a stupid problem. This weekend alone I have spent about 6 hours trying to spot coyotes. Each sheep lost is $100 down the drain. I will keep going out every day until I can kill them. The next evening when I walked up to the find the carcass and hopefully catch someone snacking I had to walk around looking for the carcass. The only thing left after 24 hours was a hide and a spine with a few ribs attached. Nothing else! I of course did not see a coyote.

Sunday I went out to get Annmarie some blackberries for her breakfast, as I froze all the others I had picked. I went out and checked on our thornless berries in the garden. I had to come back inside three times to get more containers. The berries are huge compared to the wild ones. I left some fresh ones for Annmarie and froze another 16 bags. I will need to pick berries again in about four days. I had plans to go up and look for coyotes again but ended up cleaning house instead. Sarah said she would help me shear alpaca after she got done at church. My helpers are gone again for a couple of weeks. So we need to get the alpaca done.

When she got home we rounded up the alpaca and ended up shearing four more in about three hours. The only ones left are the three babies. One of them had crawled down into the ditch and was covered in water so he would not have been easy to shear. We are planning on shearing the rest on Tuesday or Thursday this week to get them all done. Annmarie has been washing the alpaca and is on her second saddle. It is amazingly cleaner when she is done.

My priority now is the fence around field #1, coyotes and finishing the freezer room. I want to store the cleaned and ready to be cleaned alpaca fiber in the freezer room. This will get it out of the house and into one spot. I just have one piece of OSB to install on the wall and it will be ready. Okay, I need to wire five outlets also but that will only take an hour. I can wire the light later. I am pretty sure I stole power from the next room for the overhead light. Basically, I need to get some more stuff done on the old house but it will have to wait until this winter.