We got back from California last week and I proceeded to dig back into the farm on Sunday. Tex watched our animals while we were gone and everyone survived. I decided I needed to try and finish up the short stretch of fence we have been at for a month. I finished filling the rock crib on the left and topped off the other one that Tex had filled. I then went up and started to dig a hole for the middle support railroad tie. The ground is pretty much fist sized rocks the entire way down. I managed to get about 1.5 feet down and decided to call it a day as I had enough dealing with rocks. 
I swapped out the box blade on the tractor and hooked up the mower. I wanted to try and get the property out by the cars mowed down. I also figured I could mow a path for the new fence that needs to go in down by the creek. My grant is approved so now I just need to get cracking on the new fence. The first step is to use string and spray paint to mark out the fence. Once that is done we can start pounding T posts into the ground, after I buy them. The paint will give me an accurate count so i don’t over purchase. 
While I was down by the school house I realized I needed to get the irrigation water back into the ditch. It had been flood irrigating the lower bottom but I need to get in there and cut for hay. To do this without sinking the tractor I need the bottoms to dry out some. So I dug out the ditch and got all the water flowing down the ditch again. I should be able to cut hay by the end of the week. Since I managed to forget my hat in California I had to be super careful of the sun. I ended up with a lobster skull for several days and didn’t want to make it worse. So I had lots of protective gear. If I wear all this getup I can spend all day out in the 100F beating down sun and not get burned.
“Star” our white tailed cow, had her baby on Sunday. I know this as the baby was still wet and sitting up when I went by her and mom on the tractor. They looked good. Most likely Star will hide the baby for the next couple of weeks and we won’t spot it. If we don’t see it in another week I will go down and look for it. At that point I will just be trying to confirm it died. Hopefully she is just hiding it from prying eyes.
The cows are no different than the sheep, one adult female becomes the babysitter and is responsible for corralling and entertaining all of the babies. I have yet to figure out how they choose whose turn it is today or this week to watch the babies but it is better to avoid this appointment. There are enough babies now that that appointee has to actually work.
The holiday afforded me the time to get all of my outside mowing completed. I will be haying by the end of the week. 
that used to be bolted to a post that had old ceramic insulators installed at the top. The barn and old lamb shed used to have knob and tube power. I pulled the old copper wire out of the spring a few years ago. I had taken down the post as it had rotted away and saved this 4×4. I was going to mount a bat house to it at one point but while cleaning out the machine shed I found an old decorative windmill. I washed it all down with some water and applied some fresh grease. I had the metal sleeve also so I was able to drill a hole in the end of the wood, which turned out to be a solid piece of cedar!!! This would explain why it did so well laying on the ground for the last four years. I greased up the metal sleeve and after installing the windmill it just sat there and didn’t move. A couple of hours later the wind picked up enough to break everything loose and the windmill started to spin and it pivoted on its wood post. I was able to use some of the old lag bolts I picked up all over the farm. I found a railroad tie that was level and had not been pulled over during fence construction. I love it. Once Annmarie spotted it moving around she was surprised at how well it fit. Another fine example of a repurposed item. I finished it just before a rainstorm hit.
Annmarie ran the horses in the round pen yesterday but I had put it on the soft dirt. The horses tore it up something fierce. So I will need to move it next week. We have plenty of spots for it. 
I also got a large piece of Elm for the anvil. I will need to make some custom holders for it. My plan is to get it attached and then use it whenever I need to beat something into submission. I realized that the only thing I don’t really have yet is a portable grinder. So after I get that I will dress up the anvil.
We sorted off the cows to sell this fall. There was supposed to be two, there were three. So now I have to sell one more cow and Annmarie has convinced me we need to use her shared spreadsheet app she made in Airtable. We need to be able to keep track of days born and how many we have on hand. She inputted all three new calves into the system. We have sorted them off and they are now in the upper prime field. It has lots of green grass and running water. They are not happy about being sorted off of their mothers. We will have 7 cows for sale next year. We will finally have our numbers up. 
I spent some time and spread out the rest of the gravel. While I did that Tex mounted 6 sheets of plywood into the hay area. We don’t want the hay scraps to fall back into the cleaned out area. He go six sheets up and I need to go buy six more to finish the wall separating the hay area and the rest of the shop. 
Sarah scooped up gravel and spread out piles throughout the four open bays. She was very careful as I told her if she hit a support post the roof would fall on her. Now that might have been a slight exaggeration but the likelihood of a board falling on her head was high!! She was very careful and did not hit any beams. When I got home I helped load the scrap metal then dumped the bucket off of the tractor and just used the box blade to spread out all of the gravel. It is a lot easier to move around inside the building with no loader on the front. After a couple of hours I had it all spread out.
Stewart Creek Somethings 