I found this little guy sitting out by the poultry houses at dusk. Though we have scads of bullfrogs, all singing at night, it’s rare to see them. They are very shy and quick to jump and hide in the ditches if they hear you coming.
But, the near-darkness must have convinced him to sit still instead of flee. And, I’m not sure what he was doing so far away from water.
I learned about a nice, freeware blogging tool from doing a “corporate blog” at work- Windows Live Writer. For quite some time, I’ve been annoyed with the slow performance of WordPress’ web interface editor (though I have high speed internet, it’s wireless-all we can get out here, and it’s not that fast).
Last year, when installing my fence H-braces, I used “twitch sticks” to tighten the diagonal wire that provides tension to the brace. Upon reflecting, however, I’ve decided those aren’t the best choice for field fencing. Once the fence is up, it’s difficult to impossible to twist the stick if you want to tighten the brace again- it hits the fence. I think this would even be true for anything other than three-strand wire fencing. Continue reading “H Brace Tension Device”
When I was shopping for a tractor, I was really waffling between a couple of brands. I ended up with the New Holland partly because it was affordable, partly because they had great financing deals, and partly because I liked that an old dealership was nearby. I figured they’d always be around. Though I plan on doing a lot of tractor fixing myself, I figured there would be times I’d need them to do repairs. And, I wanted convenience when going to buy parts.
Bronte seems to be more clever and interested in “things” than is convenient for a LGD. I would prefer if she were a bit lazier, but she likes to play with objects. First, she was carrying her feed bowl all over the field, and I had trouble finding it. So, I attached an S-hook to the bowl, and now I chain it to the fence.
Here is #10 and her ram lamb, who was born mid-January. He is almost as big as his mother! They are both doing an interesting second-shed- they shed out earlier, but are shedding again, down to a very, very short coat. Continue reading “Growing Lambs and Storing Hay”
Here is a little pictorial of the llama shearing event last weekend. Above is the “before” nappy hair shot. She was definitely long overdue for a shear! Continue reading “Llama Shearing”
I’ve gotten quite a few fence posts in, just in the last week and a half. I need to do the cross-braces, and then I’ll have two sections ready to stretch; maybe by next weekend! Continue reading “Beginnings of a Fenceline; and One Stolen Roasted Chicken!”
We had a corn patch all rototilled and ready to go late May, when the soil was warming up. But then we had the excavators come; and ended up deciding to put a driveway there. So, corn planting was up in the air for a while. Continue reading “Corn Starts”
I have finally started on fencing the second pasture. Really, I started a few months ago, with the planning, but that takes a lot of time, so only just this last week was I able to start putting in posts. I have a master plan of the fencing layout of the whole property, which I have drawn up in Visio. It shows the high-level workflow of gates, tractor drive areas, ditches, culverts and bridges. It looks like this:
But when I’m ready to fence a particular rectangle, I need second drawing to help me figure out the materials list. Continue reading “Planning More Fencing”