Zap

Spent the day yesterday running electric fence around the south pasture. I might have been procrastinating just the tiniest amount to date, but in my defense I really didn't think it was going to be that bad.  Silly me.  But then I've never encountered a hedge post before.  Next time I'll know better.

Walked the horses up early, then went back and packed up the fencing pliers, the insulators, nails and clips, hammer, some staples, etc. in a bucket, collected a few wire posts, and headed up the hill.  Got my first insulator screwed in to the big cropped off telephone pole that serves as a corner post and thought, "Huh, this isn't going to be so bad."  That's what I get for thinking.  Ten minutes and four bent over nails later I decided to do things the smart way and went back after the drill so I could pre-drill the nail holes.  I really miss cedar posts!

Long story short, it took three more trips back to the house to collect a) more bits because I broke the first two off in the first post, and b) the hammer drill because the regular one wasn't doing the job.  On the third bit and the second drill I figured it out:  back the bit out frequently.  Otherwise it would just get stuck and either break off  (bit #1) or lose grip enough that I couldn't back it out at all and then break off (drill #1, bit #2).

Stopped at 1:30 and walked back up to the house for a quick lunch and to retrieve the jab saw to trim baby trees out of  the way.

I drove back - had to bring the horses more water anyway.  Finally got everything hooked up and tested, got back to the house and it was 6 pm.  What?!  Already time to go get the critters, and here I was ready to sit down.  So back I went up the hill.  Definitely got my exercise yesterday.

The horses were semi-convinced the fencing bucket might have good eats at the bottom so they'd circle around my way every now and then to see what I was doing.  But it was really windy, and they'd munched their way down into one of the far corners by the time I finally had the wire run and the fencer on.  They came up as I was loading things into the truck and of course once they discovered the yellow line, somebody had to test it.  I didn't see whose nose stretched out, but I heard the snap! and four sets of feet thudding off in the other direction, lol!  Should keep them from leaning across the fence to nibble the CRP, which I caught them at yesterday morning.

Only three sides are up, but the side that's left borders the cow pasture so if they manage to get out in that direction they'll just be in with the cows.  I have to pick up more wire anyway, and that's the side that will be getting a walk-through gate (soon, no more trips down the road - hooray!).  Not exactly sure where I want the gate yet....

I'm not completely thrilled with where I have the fencer, and I need to tweak the gate height, but that shouldn't take too long.  Today I really need to spend some time out housework.  I think I might actually be looking forward to vacuuming and laundry. 

Four wide

Clip-clop-snort-clop clop clop...  It's about a 1/4 mile down the road from the end driveway to the pasture gate.  The five of us have been making the trip up and back every day for the last few days.  The ponies are thrilled to be out on pasture - especially since there's some green to it.  It's just shy of 10 acres that hasn't been grazed for the last two years, so there's considerable old stuff there, too - a nice prairie mix of buffalo grass and some longer stuff.

I didn't think we were ever going to get the fence finished, but the weather finally cooperated and it's up.

We've had rollercoaster weather here lately, but I had managed to get the small piece of grass north of the driveway sectioned off with temporary electric fence and they'd been getting an hour or so a day on that, so getting out on grass wasn't a complete shock to their systems, and I've been gradually increasing the amount of time they're out. They're up to six hours on the big pasture now.

I haven't gotten a water tank in yet, so for right now I fill two big plastic tubs for them.  Thursday and Friday we had 80's, and they drained them.  Today we had a high of 41' - the high was lower than yesterday's low.  They weren't nearly so dry.

Currently we have to walk all the way up the road to the southeast corner of the pasture to get to the gate.  On the plus side, there's a grass shoulder wide enough for all of us 90% of the way, and I can see clear to the stop sign in one direction and almost as far in the other, so we stop, look and listen before starting out and if I hear anything coming in any direction we wait until I see which way the driver's going to turn.  (So far there's been a sum total of 1 car to wait on.)

The plan is to put in a walk-through gate on the north side, and then I shouldn't have to take them down the road at all.  I'm looking forward to that.

Coming in for the evening trip down the hill

It took them all of one trip to figure out where they were going every morning, and now they meet me at the gate and stand in a row to have their halters put on.  I'm a little slower; I haven't quite gotten the perfect twosomes down yet.  The only one I'm sure of is Rufus.  He walks on my heels, and he has shoes on, therefore he's an outside horse.  Other than that, they walk along politely whoever they end up next to and they've even figured out the four-wide swing at the pasture gate so that I can hook the line behind us, and the swivel-to-me at the barn gate so that I can take their halters off and block the way back out at the same time.

Speaking of the line at the pasture gate...  The existing pasture gate is one of those multi-strand wire things.  And it was a miserable pain to start with.  I can't open it one handed.  (It's tight, heavy and awkward, and I have to literally hug the fence to open and close it.)  I didn't want to leave it wide open, but I couldn't get it open easily once I had them all caught without one of them - or me - stepping in it on the way out.  And I surely did NOT want to open the gate before I had them all caught.

I woke up in the middle of the night with the solution: I tied a strip of polywire decorated with a few strips of orange surveyor's tape to the gatepost on one side, tied a gate handle to the other end so I could hook it on the other gatepost, and viola, a gate I can get in and out with four horses attached.  They respect the polywire, because it generally comes with electricity running through it.  They can also see it much better than the brownish wire gate.  The best thing is, I can unhook it one-handed, walk in keeping it snug, swing them around, and then hook it again.  Once they're all in and turned loose, then I close the wire gate and they're secure.  It will work until the walk-through's in, and/or we get a regular steel gate up instead of the wire.

See the house & barn roofs behind them?

When I walk up to get them in the late afternoon, they've been great so far about heading my way.  They get a drink, I halter and flip leadropes across their backs, collecting them one by one once I have the last one haltered.  Then it's back down the hill.  Today it was chilly with a stiff northeast wind, and I was wondering if I'd have my hands full.  Thankfully they were only a little lookier than they've been on the warmer/calmer days. 

Other than that, Cat 1 and Cat 3 have been hauled to the vet, tested negative for feline leukemia and FIV, and had their respective reproductive bits removed. Cat 1 has forgiven me.  Cat 3... not so much.  Cat 2 will hopefully cooperate and catch himself in the livetrap Sunday night so that he can take his trip Monday morning.  And that's the news that is news from around here.  Now I'm off to catch up on what everyone else has been occupied with while I've been incommunicado.

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

Stupid Human Tricks

Another beautiful morning

After Tuesday morning's run to T's mom's for showers and internet fix, T headed for H- for a round of shopping.  I stayed here and played with the pruning shears.  I managed to get the majority of the baby honey locusts cut off at ground level in the creek bed.  I also knocked the pointy clumps off the mature trees up as high as I could reach, collecting the spine clusters as I went.  That took a good chunk of the afternoon.  Good exercise, too.  As I pruned I was dumping the branches and small trees over the fence in piles, so then I had to collect them all and haul them back closer to the house to be burned.  (If we ever get wet weather.)

That was NOT fun.  The ends aren't barbed like burrs so they slide right out when they stab through your clothes, but you know how old barbwire forms big tangles and springs back at you?  After much cautious yanking, no small amount of cussing, and some gingerly squashing down, I had a truckbed full to brimming with one big spiny octopus load of trimmings.  Then I had to unload it all.  T missed all the fun.

Filled the horse tank, then put the hose in the cow tank and let it run for a hour or better - the cows were forming circle around the tank three deep when I got done unloading the locusts, so it wasn't a surprise that their tank was pretty well down.  While it filled I got the horses weight-taped and wormed.  None of them were thrilled, but they all behaved pretty well.  Even Sunny didn't put up as much fuss as he's been known to. 

Waiting for that last few inches of tank to slosh full I finally just stood there in the sunshine for a few minutes, basking.  I'd shed my quilted jacket sweating over the trees, and it dawned on me I was standing outside in a long-sleeve shirt and jeans, in December.  Not exactly the season's usual base layer of long underwear and additional woolies, topped off by heavy winter coat, scarf, hat and gloves I'd have on in SD....  Lovely, but something tells me I'm not going to enjoy June, July and August, much. 

Yesterday we spent most of the day working on horse-proofing the creekbed.  I clipped out more trees, T used the chainsaw to get some of the bigger stuff whacked off at the base, and we strung fence across to keep them out of the pile of washed-down trees and debris the county needs to come clean out of of the bridge base on the upstream side of the road. 

Well, you can almost see something....

Hooray for chainsaws!

The horses initially viewed all this noisy activity with suspicion... from a distance.

As far away as they could get

But it didn't take too long before they chalked it up to more bizarre human behavior and went back to eating, creeping incrementally towards the noise.
 

Finally, it was time to take down the fence and introduce the ponies to their new pasture.  I collected Sunny and led him over - they have to go down a short, sharp dropoff just past the fence.  Not surprisingly, Sunny and Rufus, the two who've been ridden through the most rough country, baled right down.  The other two weren't far behind. 

The first victim

Where's he going?

Down in the bottom

Initially they weren't too sure about staying down there - the wind had treetops rushing and squeaking together, and the leaves underfoot were loud.  Once they'd charged up and down through the gate a couple times, Sunny scrambled up the slope on the far side with Rufus a length or so behind. 

Rufus and Sunny explore the topside

The others followed, and they poked checking out the new boundaries.  Then they skidded back down the hill and back to the safety of more familiar space. 

"I think there used to be a fence here, George!"

When we turned them out this morning they cruised the pasture a couple of loops, then settled in grazing at the far end away from the creekbed gate.  But they were gradually easing their way that direction.  Once they're comfortable down there we'll run a temporary fence across the north section of orchard pasture  so that the grass there has a chance to recover. 

I'm such a wuss!

It's cold out there! I haven't ridden in two weeks. The horses aren't minding the cold, but unlike PrairieRunner over at Just Another Day on the Prairie, I find it much more appealing to stay inside and torture the cats.

Yes, those are antlers. Honestly, I expected much more reaction - she's apparently decided that when the camera flash goes off - she gets fish. She thinks this stuff is wonderful. The cats got for Christmas last year, and will likely again this year-


at least if Snowball has anything to say about it!

We did mend a bit of fence where the deer had run through the top wire yesterday. The horses were having a grand time blowing and snorting and just generally being silly - storm coming in... Too bad my camera got cold. I got a few of these, and then it quit. Brrr!
So that's the weekend here thus far - now I'm off to catch up on everyone else's activities!

Weekend work

It's Labor Day weekend, right?

The horses... were not laboring.

We, however, were.

Last night Sunny & Solitaire had gone fence creeping, and were NOT were they belonged. Too many weeds had grounded out the electric. So...

weed-eating was first on the agenda

in the interest of keeping
the electric up and
the four-feets looking over
the right side of their fence.

We moved on to...

a little Eastern Red Cedar eradication.

Then tackled a bit more pruning to the loafing tree,

...and finally headed over to check on Rufus and co.

We walked the fence there, too, as last night when we stopped by three (very happy) cows were out in this alfalfa field. By the time we got them back on the right side of their fence, it was too dark to see. We found their escape route this morning,

...with a little assistance from Quazar,
and made sure they were contained.

Then we fed the barn cats,

...and hit the road.

This little guy's for Mikey - no rattles, & no venom, but no one told him that - he struck at my boots when I bent over to take his picture. We made sure he was out of the road before we drove off.

Thursday already?

Wow. Well, this week has flown by. Last night we opened a new field for the horses, and spent the next couple hours getting a wire added to another of the fences the deer took down, and a gate run across. Now hopefully the electricity will keep them out of trouble. The deer and the horses!

They were wild and crazy on Tuesday night. All sorts of racing around tails flagged. I had Sunny out, and my hands full with him, so no opportunities for pictures. I think at least four of the mares are in heat, which makes for a whole lot of hormones going on. Amyra was definitely in - T gave me a leg up on her and we walked a few loops. Lots of room for progress there, but at least I don't think we lost any ground over the winter.

Other than that, not much news.

Darn Deer!

We were a little late getting out to feed last night due to some belated Christmas gift deliveries to be made now that people are back home. So it was black-black when we turned into the farm drive.

I really can't wait for the next full moon! With snow, it makes seeing things much easier - and wouldn't you know, I left the nifty headlamps my folks gave us for Christmas in the house at home :(

As we rounded the gate, I could see a horse shape in the front pasture - not out of the fence, but definitely not where a horse shape should be!

"I think they put Foxy through the fence again!" But no... T correctly identified the lone horse silhouette as Thunder, not Foxy this time. I popped out of the truck and over the fence to see if he was okay and take him back up where he belonged, while T drove on up to see about the rest of the herd.

Thunder - on the left - in warmer weather
With those high white socks,
in the dark against the snow
he looked legless

Thankfully, Thunder was fine - very happy to greet me, once he figured out that the thing coming at him from an odd direction was me. And not a bump or scratch on him that I could find - a huge relief! Bless his heart, he "led" next to me up to the gate just as if he really was wearing a halter & lead. He even slowed down and let me lean on him though the worst of the snow drifts. We paused to inspect the alley fence were it looked as if the horse-prints originated.

It looked as if the deer took out the top wire on one of their passages through from tree grove to tree grove. The lower three were fine, but with the snow crusted so hard, he appears to have just stepped over.

The electric's been off to the front section of fence since fall when it started shorting out somewhere. When the electric is on, the deer are much more mindful of how they go (usually over, rather than through), but when it's off.... And since the short seems to be somewhere underground.... I don't think the current's going to be back on until spring.

So, Thunder back where he belonged, and T off to drop off a couple more gifts while the horses munched through their grain, I adjusted the three remaining wires up a couple of notches - thankful for once for steel post fencing & plastic electric fence clips - it would have been a lot tougher dealing with cedar posts and regular fencing staples! - and wound up the broken wire where nothing could get stuck in it.

A scrounge through the barn to locate a partial roll of electrical fence tape, and I had a temporary - and more visible - top wire run at chest height from corner post to corner post along that section. Hopefully, if the deer stay clear of it, the horses will stay in until I can get out there in daylight and make permanent repairs. Hopefully it will be warmer than 5', too - can you say frozen fingers! Brrrr!!

On the plus side, if they should escape that way again, they are at least still inside "horse" pasture and more importantly, the perimeter fence, so there wouldn't be any danger of them getting out on the road.

Fencing accomplished

Well, we did it. The fence is (back) up and the top pasture is sectioned again. The portable fencer is clicking away, hopefully to deter the deer (and curious horse-type critters) from testing it.


We'll get to gates sometime this week or next weekend. For now, they can go in and out as they please.

Sunday morning

Fog this AM. After chores we walked out to check the horses. The sun was coming up, and everything was dewy and beautiful. I love that time of day.

Checking out the new fence. We spotted this guy in the ditch on the way home.
Too early for hunters, but if he's out later he may be dinner for someone.

Finally fencing & other good things

It was a very good day.

Beautiful for fencing!One of those tiny dots off in the distance is T cutting cedar.

We set some new steel posts, chopped and sawed out a bunch of scrub cedars, strung two wires & hung fence tags. Lots of wire got spliced (with a few bad words, as the splices in the can turned out to be for barbwire, and we were running electric. But a few extra crimps got the job done.

Tomorrow we'll finish up that whole stretch with two more wires, and hopefully get the gates hung.

My arms are tired from the post driver, I'm sun/wind burned, and I know I'm going to sleep well tonight.

New Fence!

We're farm (and dog) sitting for an extended weekend. I never mind being asked, even in the winter, but this has been absolutely perfect weather-wise. Getting up at 5 am to do farm chores before work should make the day that much longer, but I've always been a morning person.

FEED us already!!!!

There's a real sense of accomplishment to having all the sheep fed, the horses checked, and watching the sun come up with someone you love - 'cause darned if I'm doing it all by myself when he's available! ;)

This is our weekend house guest. She's a real sweetie. I'm her surrogate person (she's curled up in an exhausted ball at my feet right now - I think the fencing wore her out, too - lol), so she sticks pretty close. I have Mabel the cat by my keyboard, and puppy-warmed feet. What more can I ask for? Maybe a back rub....

T snapped these on Friday night. First pics and video with my new camera :)

You can see from his ears Thunder's thinking pretty hard. But we managed a few circles under our own power. He actually turned quite nicely to the right. The left, not so much. 'Whoa' worked well, though. Not too shabby for our first foray sans ground control!

Had to pop on Sunny for a five minute ride, too.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the disk that came with the camera was only 32mb. Two pictures and two very brief videos and it was full, darn it. Still, new toy = fun figuring out all the settings. So far, I like it.

Today, I'm thankful for sunshine, fine fall weather, critters (as always), and a satisfactory day's work. Perhaps later I'll be thankful that back rub....

Weekend Goals

I've been silent lately - well, not really, but my fingers haven't been talking much! It's been hectic around here, and I just haven't had much horse time. Other than the basics like getting grain dropped off and trying to track down the farrier (note to self: must call him AGAIN!!!), I've been reduced to patting noses and counting legs. Nice, but not terribly satisfying, that's for sure. :(

They've sure gotten a lot furrier in the past week. (New fuzzy pictures soon, promise!) We had rain Saturday and Sunday - a nice warm fall rain, which brought the grass back just a bit. They look good.

Since it doesn't look like I'll have much time the remainder of the weekdays, either, here are my weekend goals:

• Fencing
• we took the remains of the alley fence down earlier this summer - now it needs to be replaced.
• divide the hill pasture back into two pieces - that fence the deer took out last winter, and it needs to get put up, with new gates
• Riding
• I will not get sidetracked. I will actually take the saddles out of the car and ride Sunny!
• If it's nice I'd love to actually get a short trail ride in with T
• Tack cleaning
• Fall round of saddle soap for all the tack, even the stuff I haven't been using

That's enough to start. I suspect the fencing will, as always, turn into a bigger job than it's supposed to be.

Long weekend

Long weekends are highly appreciated around here - three days mainly free from "paycheck" work mean extra time to get caught up on housework, farm work, and sleep.

This one had a sad beginning, though. M flew out Saturday morning early.
I took a few pictures at the airport, unfortunately, no one was wearing very happy faces.... The best I captured just looked odd. He made it back to CT without incident, however, and has been calling to give us updates on what he's had for supper, where he's been, and what his friends have been doing.

*****************

Saturday afternoon we decided it was time to tackle a postponed fencing project. New wire needs to go up on one of the cross pasture fences, and I wanted to get T-post tops on, too. There were some downed limbs to be moved, and some holes to be filled in.

Of course, since the fencing stuff was in a bucket, we very shortly had an attentive audience.
Star was fairly sure that she should get first crack at whatever munchies might be in the offing. Silly girl.
After they'd tipped the bucket over and determined there wasn't actually anything edible in it, they were content to just hang out and keep an eye on us.

We'll put in some new T-posts and stretch wire today. Gates will wait for the weekend, I think.

******************

This morning T and I went adventuring. He's been anxiously awaiting the day when the elderberries were ripe, and lo-and-behold, the day's arrived.

To get to them we only had to wade through a few thistles....
But there were also plenty of these lovely sunny faces for encouragement.
I brought a big bunch home for the kitchen table.

Now I'm being paged for fencing, so more later....