I came home on time today after picking up groceries for Easter brunch. The sheep are “mowing” the front lawn so you have to be very careful as you make your way down the steps, across the bridge and onto the stepping stones to the front porch, there are a lot of sheep bombs. I had two loads of stuff to bring in and on the first load I failed to latch the gate securely. This caused a mass exodus from the front yard out into the car area in front of both houses. I managed to spot it and stop about half the herd from leaving. So now we only need to get 40 sheep back in instead of 80. I told Annmarie I would be right back and took the dogs to get them back. We wandered out through the ram pasture. I have been popping thistles all week with my pocket knife and spotted a few I missed so I got those. As I walked by the bridge over the ditch I noticed that it was clogged with tumbleweeds so I waded in and pulled all those out and an old piece of tin I found. I slowly started heading to the barn. I let the horses out and closed the front barn lot off and left the main gate open so we could push the sheep into a secure area. This is when my phone rang, Annmarie wanted to know where I was as she was heading out to help and the sheep were now down at her mother’s house and she was trying to push them toward our house because the alpaca were herding the sheep.
We had to push them around her house and back up to ours. Just as we got all the gates shut and were headed back to the house Annmarie spotted a ewe that was stuck in the orchard and her baby was in our front yard. She went to go deal with that while I snuck off to take care of chickens. After grabbing my second egg the cell phone went off, it was Annmarie there were two separate babies separated and where was I? I left the eggs and went and helped corral the last two sheep. All the sheep were behind the barn and we were getting ready to go inside when Annmarie looked up on the hillside and spotted the Bull outside his area. He was on the open hillside which means he had to have pushed through the creek crossing after I tried booby trapping it. This contraption had lasted for almost three weeks without him thwarting it. I was able to go up to the hillside and have him follow me up and through the gate. I even managed to find a coffee cup out near the fence that I had forgotten when I was building my contraption. The bull ambled down toward the other cows and all was good with the world. We headed back to the house and just as we got to the hillside gate we spotted the bull going through the ram pasture. He had gone down and pushed through the creek crossing behind the house and then went straight to the creek crossing behind the barn he tore up last year and up to the fence next to the heifers. It looked like he had spent a large portion of the day alongside the fence. It was pushed over in areas and there was a beaten path alongside it. Annmarie tried to push the bull back out with the dogs but this went no where as the dogs kept circling around and pushing the bull the wrong way. Annmarie had to be in to town so I took over. It took me another hour of pushing him around to get him to go back down to the other cows. 
It was painful for me, the bull and the dogs. I then had to go up to the incomplete fence line and wire up the upper gate and wire up the two bottom gates. I then went and redid the creek crossing behind the house. Then I went and got a heavy metal gate and wired and tied it in place over the ram pasture ditch crossing. I used a lot of bailing twine to get it to hold. There is no flex in that sucker now so he cannot shimmy under it. I also cleaned out the ditch for about 30 feet while I was here. I wear rubber boots all the time now when working outside. It works for me and I can easily clean them off. I need to get in here and rework this fence crossing. I have just about decided that I need to string cable across the bottoms of the ditch so I can clip in the panels during the summer so that the bull cannot lift them. I need to do five separate crossings this way to keep him in. I really need to build the bull enclosure inside the barn lot so we can keep him separate from the heifers when we want.
Tomorrow I will be completing the fence running up the back hill and installing all the gates in that fence permanently regardless of what the weather is doing. I need two fences between him and the heifers. 
Gizmo and Bo, the cat were keeping Annmarie company while she worked until eh home office today. They were sucking up a little extra heat from each other and the freestanding heater. 
I was called by the lovely wife the morning following the bull escape. I had made it to work and was playing catch up. She called to tell me that the alpaca were out in the lower barley field. Now the field is actually growing wheat but the “Lower Barley Field” is its name as it was a field her dad developed to prove to his father that he could, hence the name. Now how on earth could the alpaca get into that field? Well, when I went into the field to chase the bull I left the gate open just in case the bull would not turn around, he could go out into the house area of the farm then we could run him into the correct field.
Annmarie used the dogs to move the alpaca. This is not the best technique as the alpaca will band together and run at the dogs. Luckily there are two dogs and they are sneaky. The alpaca get tired of one or the other sneaking behind them and biting them on the ankle. There was a large stare down contest going on as I pulled up to help. Annmarie had them all out of the field before I could get out of the car to assist.
We are on numbers 190 for both the males and females, so we have had over 380 sheep through our property in the last seven years. The last three years have been the big years. We are shooting for 150 lambs a year through the place. We need to have 75 ewes for that to happen. We are almost there.
