spring

Farm Work was happening

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I started out the Sunday by tagging and banding the last two little lambs we had in the barn, a little boy and girl. I then mixed all the sheep together so we don’t have to manage two separate herds. I came in and started working on the bathroom shelves and while outside cutting lumber heard some squawking. I looked around the edge of the house and there was our pretty rooster in the front yard desperately trying to get through the metal fence to get away from the dogs. Unfortunately for him, he is too big to fit between the gaps. I was able to call the Border Collies off but our little ankle biter Brussels Griffin, Gizmo, did not want to leave the chicken and had to be hollered at. I tried to open the gate but that just confused the chicken and ended up just having to reach down and grab him and toss him over the fence. He got lucky and only lost about 30 feathers. I have no idea what he was doing in the yard, the chickens know it is not safe.

I went out to pickup the carcasses and once I got into the barn lot I decided I had better do a couple of things before just getting the carcasses. Annmarie and I had noticed the culvert that did not get repaired was undercutting the bank and drive over path. She was afraid if the horses got out they would try and cross this and fall through potentially braking a leg. So I dug out the old culvert, it took a few tries to get it above ground. I finally had to go clear all the dirt off of the culvert before I could lift it out of the water. I moved that culvert over to the other culvert and will work on getting it set so it takes the water coming out of the crossing and allows it to run down through the culvert and not eat out the bank edges. I will mess with that after the water level goes down some or I won’t mind getting wet.

While I was messing with the culvert I spotted something in the back runoff creek. I wasn’t sure what it was but it looked like an animal carcass. My only thought was I hope it isn’t and if it is then please don’t let it be so decomposed that I cannot just drag it out of the water. I was able to just slide a chain around its neck and pull it out of the water. It had been dead for a few days only so it was still intact mostly. I took it up to the boneyard and then came back for the stillborn lambs, dead lamb and dead alpaca. It smelled bad but managed to stay in one piece while moving it with the tractor. I was eternally grateful that the carcass only smelled a little bit.

While I was dropping off the carcasses I noticed water running in an ancient ditch that has never been there before since we moved back in 2007. I will need to dig out the ditch again and make it a little deeper and give it some consistent shape. I will just have to add it to my list for the year. I am starting to feel better after my run in with Covid19. It has been eight weeks and this was the first weekend I did not notice any chest pain. My hope is that my aerobic ability will improve quickly now.

I need a break

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Annmarie spotted another random newborn lamb yesterday evening. This morning Tex and I went out into the ram pasture and Tex snagged the newborn. I could of done it but it ran to his side of the field! We took it to the barn so I could tag and band it. I even remembered to enter it into the Airtable spreadsheet so we could track it.

Afterwards we went to install the culvert in the orchard. We had to dig out the bottom of the channel by hand and had to put it in a couple of times to fit test it prior to back filling it in. I was able to use the old dirt and then drag down the edges. We even rocked in the inlet side of the culvert. I can now get the tractor over to the other side of the ditch.

We were able to move the pipe trailer out of the field and snagged all the loose pipe laying about. We moved the pipe trailer out of the fields over near the wheat field then proceeded to clean up the scrap metal piles. We tossed the metal over the fence so the scrap metal guy can pick it up on his next visit.

I had to go to town to get more diesel for the tractor. We were running on fumes. I had Tex go use the chainsaw on the downed trees at the spring head. I also wanted him to trim the tree touching the old chicken coop. After lunch, we took the now filled tractor over to drag out the downed trees. Between the chain saw and the tractor we got all the dead massive limbs piled up into a large burn pile. Hopefully, next week we can light it on fire. 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.

After she got back from church we went out to work on the front hillside and started to set up the water system so we can start growing clover. We were able to reuse some of the aluminum uprights from the main sprinkler system, along with the valves and sprinkler heads. We keep trying to reuse as much stuff as we can. 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.

I had Tex fill in gravel in the ditch behind the machine shop. I will need to finish it off this week. The rest of our hay equipment should arrive this week. We will be able to store it in the machine shed now! We did park the tractor in the shop tonight. It is an amazing thing.

I am done! I am so tired that I started losing my grip while working on the sprinkler system. I will be taking it easy next week. I am thinking about working on the bathroom upstairs. More thought than muscle.

Gonna be buying more hay in the fall

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Annmarie and I took a walk up the pastures yesterday to see how they were doing. The middle prime pasture looks great. It does have some thistles and weeds but the grass is very thick. I am going to have to spray it first. Today I started spraying that pasture. The upper middle pasture is mostly broadleaf weeds. I will be doing it after this one. This means most evenings I will be sitting on the tractor. The grass is almost 18 inches high already. I sent an email to the company that we bought our hay equipment from and asked when it was going to be shipped to us.

Tex and I finished the fence over by the lamb shed. It is all secure, more wooden posts and T-posts to stiffen the fence and two more strands of barb wire. We even cut the metal panel out of the way so the gate will now swing either direction. This took most of the morning. I had to patch the fence in three areas once we got it strung up. There is a downside to reusing old fence.

We went ahead and just cut the leaning fence apart and will work on getting it redone. The water had dammed up behind woven wire. All the sticks and brush made a very nice blockage and the water spread out and got deep. Since Tex was going to fix the fence while I sprayed after lunch I brought over all the supplies he would need and we even dropped the culvert into the ditch.

We had tamales again for lunch! They are very good. I am unsure what to make for lunch tomorrow. I got out some ham for breakfast but lunch is still up in the air. I am thinking chili and Hill’s all beef wieners. I like to brown the hot dogs while the chili is cooking then mix them both together, toss cheese and onions on top and eat! It is very good.

While I went up and put 50 gallons of spray on the field Tex got the fence back together. We piled up rocks at the entrance and exit of the culvert and I will keep adding dirt to it until we have a nice level crossing. I opted to not have both culverts placed here as I will need the other one some where else on the farm.

The panel is clipped into place with little aluminum clips that the water can bend if there is too much pressure on the panel. I still need to do a little work on the waterway as I would like to add some small rocks into the channel to help cut down the erosion. We need to rehang the gate also as the H brace did get pushed upright but Tex didn’t add enough gravel and tightening the fence caused them to be a little crooked. We will move the gate around to the opposite sided H brace so hopefully we can get the gate working again.

Watered flower area almost done

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Tex came out again today, the guy is a glutton for punishment, my favorite kind of worker. He started to put up wire on the fence posts and I continued picking up rocks for the spring edging. Every time I went out to the rock pile I spent a little time dragging the ground with the box blade to catch rocks and miscellaneous debris. I would like to be able to mow it with the tractor if needed but since I have not gone over the ground its not safe. I have ruined two blades on the tractor mower already. I have also had to have the mower welded on and beat back into shape. I am trying to be more cautious now.

I managed to get most of the rocks off of the main portion of the skiff of land. I went here because there were lots of rocks. There are a lot less rocks now after two days of hauling them off. I have managed to snag most of the very large rocks. I need about 20 more 200# + rocks. They stay in place when you put them in the dirt when they weigh that much. Our largest one we set was around 600#+. My tractor will only lift 800# so it makes it pretty easy to estimate how much a rock weighs.

As I was finishing up and dragging the ground smooth I spotted a small piece of metal. I hit it with the box blade and this 80# chunk of grated iron came loose from the ground. This thing would have eaten my mower for lunch! I am going to figure out a place to use this I am just not sure where. I was thinking it could go outside one of my sliding barn doors as it has sides and a grate to prevent it from holding water. It’s a thought I may have to pursue. I want to get the aluminum pipe moved over here for storage. Any animal that steps on it makes a dent. If I store it outside of the animal area then no one can step on it. It can stay there indefinitely if needed.

We have 3-4 barn cats that we know of and this one is the only one we see on a daily basis. She wants attention all the time but after biting Annmarie we don’t reach down and pet her. Annmarie was on antibiotics for a week. The cats are doing their job as we have not seen a single mouse in the barn this winter. We are hanging our extra gates on the walls and it makes the window look weird.

I used to be able to ignore my stomach and keep working straight through until dinner time but that is not the case any more. I made Tuna surprise for Tex and I for lunch. Tuna, noodles, can of cream of mushroom soup, some onions and a can of peas. It is the bomb, I almost never make it as Annmarie doesn’t like tuna and it makes a bunch.

Tex appreciated my culinary prowess. We got our side of the fence all completed! I got both gates installed with a few little quirks and after some added wood the gaps were small enough to keep the sheep inside. I always forget how long it takes to hang a gate or door. Its far longer than you think it should be. We got the bottom row of rocks down by the spring all put in place. We have started another row of rocks about a 1/3 of the way from the top. My hope is it will help keep the elevated rock walls from sliding. We put in a bunch of T-posts next to the rock wall to see if it is actually moving. I even went so far as to cut most of the posts off at the fence height on the horse enclosure. I got Annmarie to agree to let me use the old mailboxes as bird houses. I am going to split them into two or three compartments and drill holes in the mailboxes. I could maybe even do four depending on the size of the box. We have several old mailboxes lying around. I want to mount these on top of the railroad ties. I kept the old 12 foot 4×4 that used to hold the power cables in the air to the barn. I am thinking I could build two bat houses and mount them to the pole and bolt it to one of the posts on the rock cribs. The bat house idea is going to have to wait.

We managed to get woven wire up near the barn but not four strands of smooth wire. We ran out of time. We need more rocks for the second rock wall. I may try and get a couple of loads every night after work so this upcoming weekend Tex and I can just dig in instead of waiting for me to haul them in.

We are going to finish that flower enclosure then set up the sprinklers on our front hillside. That is were the water for this flower enclosure is going to come. I don’t want to plant flower seeds until we have water or else it’s going to rain on a consistent basis.

Tex doesn’t wear gloves much. I went up to him today and pointed out that he was bleeding from a cut on his hand. He looked down, surprised that he was cut, and then just shrugged it off and went back to work. I already checked with his mother and he is current on his tetanus shot.

Rock fencing

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I would have started fencing on Friday morning but Tex was sick. I had plans of going to work until 1200 during which Tex would have been making progress but alas it did not happen. I still only went to work until 1200 then went shopping for more railroad ties. I looked at a new Ruger Mark IV 22 semiauto pistol. I need something a little more accurate than my Walther P-22. It’s on the want list now.

This morning Tex came out and I fed him breakfast to get started. Homemade hash browns, bacon and two farm fresh eggs over easy all cooked in bacon grease! It was good. One would have thought we would run outside to get on that fencing but the honey do list came first. We moved all the furniture back into the spare room and even left one piece out, an old wash basin stand. There was no real room for it. We filled the closet back up and now that I have shelves between the duct work in the closet I am using those 12″ wide shelves to store empty canning jars. They tend to accumulate and I run out of spots to put them before I make an attic run. Annmarie discovered my second stash of egg cartons I store in the closet also. I keep my third stash in the attic. We are good for about 2-3 years.

We then moved the display case out of the upstairs eventual bathroom and I replaced the broken leg on it. Annmarie cleaned it up. It had been there for 12 years. We just have to decide what to put in it. I have a large collection of medical supplies I have accumulated over the years.

We also picked out two maps from the late 1800’s to take in and get a price quote on framing. We have about 30 maps of our local area and initial townships that are hand drawn on linen backed paper. The question is which ones do we frame first?

I sent Tex out first to start cleaning up the front ditch fence crossings and tossing all the burnables onto the burn pile. I told him to just use the bucket of the tractor as a wheelbarrow. I stayed inside and did the dishes and a few more honey do items. When I went outside I started the fire and Tex kept bringing load after load of wet soaked rotting wood but he kept going to the same place in the barn lot. I grabbed my coffee and told him we needed to take a look. He said good cause he needs a chainsaw. He was cleaning up the entire spring head!! Those trees have been down for 11 years since I burnt out the 30 foot high tumble weed patch that was a tree grove. The only tree that responded to fire was the black walnut, it started to actually put on walnuts after that. So we had a discussion that I do want that cleaned out and he can borrow a chainsaw but we need to get the fence done in the barn lot first. That is a great task for when I am at work!

So I had him start tearing out the creek crossing that the bull and sheep kept going through. He is to remove everything from both railroad ties on the edges of the below picture. Anything burnable goes on the fire. It was a mess of wire, panels, rope and broken boards, along with flooding debris. While he was doing that I started to pick rocks. We needed rocks for the two rock cribs and alongside the creek to keep the dirt on the hillside.

I spent from 1000 to 1330 hauling rocks when I realized I was hungry again. We had a gourmet lunch, Nalley chili with Hill’s all beef hotdogs. The hotdogs got browned then the fry pan deglazed with fresh onions and garlic and all of it thrown into the chili, top it off in the bowl with some shredded cheddar cheese! That is a lunch that will stick to your ribs and keep you going for hours.

I went back out and picked more rocks. Tex started filling the rock cribs with the small rocks and the large rocks were saved to be used down by the ditch.

We got all the rock cribs filled, I put about 12 rocks in only, Tex did the rest. We then started to wrestle with the large rocks and tried to get them on a shelf down by the water. This was not easy and especially not easy after they roll down a muddy hillside and go into the front spring. Muddy wet rocks are not easy to move around. Tex managed to get most of his rocks into the creek.

I again fell into the water. I slipped on the muddy hillside and landed flat on my backside into the water filling my waterproof boots. We got all the rocks I had brought down near the water’s edge when Sarah came and told me it was 1815 and time for dinner. I had left my watch and cell phone in the house at lunch so I had no clue what time of day it was. It was quitting time anyways, Tex had rolled his second from last rock into the water and the two of us could not lift it up into place and could barely roll it into place. The rock was only about 150#. Earlier we had been moving several hundred pound rocks into place. Tomorrow I will get more large rocks and we will start putting up wire fencing. I would like to get flower seed on the ground.