Monday, February 18, 2013

Wire


Have you all discovered Pinterest?  I've been resisting adding one more "social" site to my list, but it finally sucked me in.  In the course of early morning browsing I ran across a pin that I just had to try - the original post is from Cranberry Morning, who dressed her wreath much more fashionably, but here's my version:

And I have no shortage of old barbwire!

The DIYs and recipe pics are just way too addictive.

It's been pretty quiet around here.  Still no rain.  Or snow.  South of us has had some rain.  North of us has had a fair amount of snow.

Other than the usual junk/metal runs this week, we tackled removing the old chicken wire off the rock chicken house in preparation for pulling it down.

Before
You can't see the wire in the photo, but the boards form a framework for three sides and a top.  The wood was pretty rotten, but the wire was still in surprisingly good condition.

It was the original homestead house, but two of the walls have cracked so badly that it's become a hazard.  We'll leave the lower portion of the wall standing on the west and north as a retaining wall on the hill and put a flower garden in against it (the floor is dirt), and use the rest of the stone elsewhere.

Saturday we got the posts up for temporary fence around the open spot on the north side of the driveway.

Pasture to-be
I'll be able to put the horses out there for a bit every day until the big pasture's ready, and once they've nibbled it down we'll get it dragged and reseeded like the orchard.  They'd have been out on it yesterday, but I ran out of insulators, and wouldn't you know everybody else in the county must have had the same idea, because the only places open on a Saturday afternoon were out in both the two neighboring towns as well.  So, today I'll check at the Co-op. 

Yesterday we dug post holes and drove steel posts to fence off  the 10 acres we rented from the neighbor to the south.  The whole pasture is probably 30 acres or better, but it has oil wells and cattle guards.  I'm not too worried about the pumpers, as they're mostly fenced off.  But cattle guards and horses - not a good mix. 


They were willing to rent us just the stubby rectangle at east end and didn't mind if we put in a cross fence and a gate.  We'll also run electric around the other three sides to keep the ponies off the somewhat antique - but basically sturdy - barbwire.

We didn't get wire run, but the steel posts are in and the wood posts are in the holes but not set yet.  We have to bring up some dirt, because the top of the hill is gravel and rock starting about 3" down.  Which made for lots of fun digging holes, let me tell you.


I was bound and determined I wasn't going to post again until I'd gotten a ride in.   Which we planned to do yesterday afternoon after fencing.  But T's brother showed up as we drove into the yard, and he stayed for 2 hours, and then T's mom and a friend stopped by and ended up staying for supper...

So I grabbed 10 minutes on Sunny in the pasture while T and his brother talked shop.  Hey, it counts.  At least Sunny thought so.  Then I did laundry and made supper.

This morning's agenda was getting Friday's load of old boards and posts taken to the dump - it was closed for President's Day Saturday, which I didn't discover until I was there. And then I did the same thing this morning.   Grrr!  And then picking up insulators I need to get Saturday's fence finished up.  And of course the Co-op turned out to be closed, too.  Best laid plans, trampled all over by dead presidents.

Is is scary?  We're not sure...
When in doubt, run away in all directions

5 comments:

Kellie said...

You guys have sure been busy! and I absolutely love that first picture! Gorgeous!

Glad you managed to sneak a ride in. Felt good didn't it?

So what are you all planning for your rented land? Just more room for your horses or are you going to get cattle?

I resisted pinterest for a long time too. Was futile. There is sure some cool stuff out there. Very cool barbwire wreath. I'm going to have to check that out.

For a homestead house it sure looked pretty substantial. Can you imagine living in a house w/a dirt floor? eek.. Those homesteaders were certainly tough!

Rotten dead presidents for putting the kabosh oh dumping your junk lol

Glad you are well :)

SunnySD said...

Hey, Kellie - glad to see you back online :)

It felt great to be riding, even for so short a time. Really have to start doing that more!

The rented acres will be horse pasture. We're anticipating cows sometime next year, I think, but it looks like T may head back for another deployment, so we're holding off on buying calves. Too much fencing for me to tackle solo :(

No kidding on the dirt floor. And it's TINY. I mean, our house is not large at all. But the whole chicken house would fit inside our living room. At a guess, they didn't spend much time inside - too much work to be done!

Kellie said...

Boy that's hard. Hope your T doesn't have to go again.

Yeah, I suppose they pretty much just slept and cooked in those old houses.

You probably aren't getting all the spam junk with your word verification turned on? I did the comment moderation thing for the first time yesterday, because no joke I got like 30 in less than 24 hours. That is just nuts!!

Kellie said...

Oh and holy moly - I was browsing your blog list and imagine my surprise when I found one of my favorite authors is on Equestrian ink!!! I just love love Laura Crumb!!

SunnySD said...

Isn't she great? I haven't found her new book yet, but her posts are a lot of fun, and the other writers on there are an interesting bunch, too.