The additional pen

A couple days ago I mentioned the new fence that we got built this month. Although the only picture I could find in our archives was taken the winter we moved in It gives a pretty good idea of how the area and landscape has been changed by the addition of this fencing. Since both pictures are from relatively the same angle and approximate distance. You'll just have to ignore the obvious difference of snow vs. no snow.

[BEFORE]

[AFTER]

I am so excited about this fence. Because it effectively gives us three separate pens to rotate the goats through. And because it connects the 2 existing fields, the amount of time spent chasing the goats into one field or the other has also been eliminated. Finally it solved the little problem I had with getting a metal garden shed to drop in the front field (see: a hillbilly backed over my shed). The entire reason I wanted a garden shed in that field was to provide protection from the elements while they grazed the front field. Now that the front area of the girls barn is sealed in they can seek shelter back in their own barn instead of needing a separate one, if the gate is left open between the 2 areas. Or they can simply spend the day playing in this area in front of the barn and have the option of heading in whenever they need it.

The speed that the fence went up has to be a record around here too!

Hubby dug the fence posts holes in a day

(with the handy dandy clam shell auger I found at the flea market for $30 back in August)
And tapped in the posts that day. He let them settle overnight, nailing boards to them and constructing gates the next day. While he was constructing and hanging gates, as well as fixing some miscellaneous holes at the back of the new pasture (not to mention reinforcing the chicken run).I went wild with the whitewash and manged to barely stay one step ahead painting both sides of the fence in one afternoon and the next morning. As soon as the paint was dry he put up the wires and bah boom- New goat pasture in only a few days!

Where did October Go?

Really?
It's been a hectic stressful month around here. I had some very sick kids 2 trips to the Emergency room within 12 hours kind of sick. And a husband who although technically employed seemed to be on "standby" and thus here all month. Although we (and by that I mean HE- to a large extent) managed to get quite a few projects done. The money issue of staying home and working only on the farm has been a nightmare.

I'll try and get some pictures posted of the work that has gone on. The most noticeable to the whole landscape of the yard was about 100 or so feet of fence that my hubby built and then wired in so we effectively have another goat pen. It leads straight to our "big" field out front, which not only means 3 pen rotation for the goats but also no goats chasing across the front yard when they decide they'd rather go on an adventure then head into the front field.

We also finished the boys barn, insulation, new wood, and about 80% painted. So at least its livable for winter. And obviously their pasture is all enclosed now.
The Girls barn still needs some work, but is getting there. It's comfortable enough for our first snow. but I'm not sure it's -40 proof yet.

Right now our big concern is getting hay.
Although lots of people have it for sale. We're finding a lot of people have no way of loading it. (explain that to me?- yeah here's a 1200 pound hay bale -good luck!?!?)
We've also realized it's going to be quite an engineering feat to unload hay bales once we get them here.
If I could go back in time...
We've learned since buying this place, that most people will write the current tractor into the farm offer. And I can't tell you how many times I've cursed us, for not knowing and not doing that.
As of right now, a tractor, just isn't in the tight budget. So although I'm sure we'll be able to secure hay bales and get them loaded. our adventures getting them off the truck may end up being YOUTUBE worthy!

why am I insane?

I decided that the goats need a shed. One of those metal garden sheds.
Since our pasture for them is a ways from the barn. they need to have some sort of shelter in the field. From wind rain whatever.
I was told a cow shelter would work. Those 3 sided shacks you see? But even those are expensive, and short of buying it new and unassembled I wasn't sure how we'd transport it to the field. So I thought I was quite brilliant with the idea of a metal garden shed.
I found one that was 10 x 10 and cheap cheap. But metal garden sheds can be taken apart with a few screws right?
uh huh!!!!
I'm not going to tell you how much tin we had to bend and pry just to get at the stupid screws in some places. The roof is screwed into place from a minimum of 3 directions.
We worked for 4 hours to get this shed apart. Were maybe half done. I have 50 pounds of screws in my pockets. The pieces still aren't small enough to transport and when we finally ran out of sunlight we had to throw in the towel. Leaving a note saying we'd be back to pick it up as soon as possible.
But who knows when that will be with Chris' work schedule so up in the air.
I'm just hoping that we didn't half disassemble it for them to turn around and sell it to someone else. That would be my kid of luck lately.

On a brighter note I have managed to wire, assemble or cover with snow fence 4 gates in the last 24 hours. 3 for the corral and one for the front pasture. Leaving very little left to do on the front pasture.

Information overload

Thursday was another wet and rainy day around here. And I couldn't take it! Feeling trapped in the house, we somehow ended up on a little road trip. Traveling to the next biggest town?City? about an hour East of here.


Oddly we came across a coffee shop that had a basement full of used books. Mostly for a dollar or 2 each.


these were my wicked scores from the shop...

The New Complete Great Pyrenees by Paul Strang

And Raising Sheep the modern way by Paula Simmons.

I've been devouring both these books in small doses ever since I got them (funny with 2 small kids I can no longer sit down and read a book cover to cover).

I find the Complete Pyrenees book so interesting because although we own 2 dogs that are at least 1/2 Pyrenees each, I've only gotten my information about the breed from websites or blogs...and I never have time to read any website in it's entirety. So to have an actual book that I can flip through and find answers in is awesome. Plus the index to look up specific questions...it's one of the things I miss most about not always having books as your resources any more. Although the Internet is usually more convenient and faster for researching ( and way less heavy than boxes and boxes of books when you've moved as many times as we have) Some times it's nice to be able to scan an index and start from there. Not having to know what your looking for specifically.

The sheep book is a wealth of knowledge that I want to absorb like a sponge. I finally got my answer to how many sheep per acre!!!

The answer is 4 sheep per acre if you have good pasture and 1-2 per acre if you have poor pasture. In case you were wondering.

My mind has been running in overdrive as I read about fencing, and the importance of buying sheep that are prone to twins lambing.

I have been concerned about the state of our fences for quite awhile and wondering how much repair and or extra wire would have to be added before we could introduce any animal especially sheep to the pastures. and I read this...

"Sheep quickly learn to jump sagging fences...If you wait until they have the jumping habit, they may still do it after the fence is repaired. One jumper can set a bad example and should be sold, or slowed down by temporary "clogging" until retrained."

"Clogging" is strapping a piece of wood around the sheeps front ankle that gets in the way to prevent it from jumping- who knew? not me, I've never heard of it. (of course tonight I'll probably have some strange dream of sheep jumping over the moon in actual clogs -like the big dutch wooden shoe kind)

shopping & garden planning

I called my Mother in Law this morning for advice on where to plant the stuff we bought at the farmers market yesterday...her advice was full to mostly sunny for all of it. But also recommended I get it in the ground right away. So I started some serious garden planning today (although quite late according to all the seed packages I probably should have started them6 to 10 weeks ago indoors)

The previous owners left a box full of potatoes downstairs- and as yo can see they're already sprouting, I knew I should probably cut them into chunks, but my Mother in law reccomended smaller chunks than I was thinking with only one or 2 "eyes" per piece. She also said to put them into the ground right away, and when they are about 8 inches or so, to create hills around them... (again more stuff I never knew)

I went into town and got a bunch (39 to be exact) of seed packages, they we're 3 for a dollar at the dollar store,so I'm not totally sure what kind of quality we'll be getting, but since I knew the garden was going in late I didn't want to spend a million bucks on seeds that might not work anyways.

From there we zipped over to Peavey Mart- Which is quickly replacing Wal-mart as my fav. store (gasp) but seriously, Their prices are way better than any of the other stores that carry the same kind of stuff...the chicken wire on the right of the pic for example? reg. 15.99 vs.17.99 at home hardware- plus it was on sale for only 12.99 so a 5 dollar a roll differnce.

Anyways I picked up some carrot and pea seeds at Peavey Mart as well as two types of onions. And then we got the driveway reflectors so Chris can actually find our house in the dark. lol. As well as a ton or at least gallons and gallons of white barn paint for the fence I want to do out front (and hopefully the window frames, and some touch ups on the out builings as well).

Speaking of paint~ that's another example of Peavey Mart pricing- We'd priced the big 5 gallon bucket at Home hardware as well as ace hardware on saturday>HH started at $99 and went up. Ace started at 135 and up. Peavey mart? on sale for $5 dollars off making it 64.99 but their regular price is still only $70. seeing why I'm totally falling in love with peavey mart yet?

Mending fences

It was a big FENCE day around here,
We we're excited because the previous owner was true to his word and showed up with new gate (Yay- no more plywood gate to the outbuildings) and put them up today to replace the gate~ which were actually pieces of their horse trailer that they took with them.

Daddy and Nathan nailed the few boards that were falling off in the one front paddock

and this....has been an issue since the snow melted and I realized what it is...

Our front field has water in it, which I assumed was just standing water from the winter that would evaporate soon enough...umm. NO.

this is apparently actually a small dugout...small by livestock standards I guess, but it happens to be about 10 feet deep in the middle and is only a few hundred yards from the front of the house.

I've been having nightmares about a two year old running straight into it.

So tonight after the little guy was in bed Chris and I started installing garden wire fencing to the inside of the rail fence. I figure it will probably only keep Nathan back for so long, but at least he can no longer just dive under or through the fence, He'll have to carefully climb it, which will hopefully give me time to catch him, if he makes a break for it!!!