Friday's Fences #104 Winter Pasture

It was time to move our bred heifers from some rented land to their winter pasture at J's dad's house.  

 The condition of the fences here continues to amaze me.

 The pens are in pretty rough shape.  J had brought up a load of panels to reinforce everything.  He also made use of the natural barriers in the field, ie. the junked car and broken flat bed trailer.

 Then he turned into the pied piper.

 I had to hide in the truck again so I wouldn't scare the heifers.  Apparently, I don't "walk right".

 J had no trouble getting them up.

 But the gate post broke off and we had to put the tractor into play by holding up the end of the fence next to the cattle trailer.

 And because it's Friday's Fences, just one more view from the other side of the fence.

Two loads with the cattle trailer for the heifers and one trip to bring the bull home and - done.
For more Friday's Fences click HERE.

Now We're Done

We went by to check the last cow due to calve this fall.  (the other one looks to be bred so late she'll just have to move to the spring group)

 The cows are sometimes scared of me so I stayed back while J walked up to check.  From my vantage point I couldn't see anything.

That is until a little white head popped up.

It is amazing how they can hide in plain sight.  It was terrible at our farm at the house before we got the goats and we were overrun with multiflora roses.  The entire cow and sometimes lots of cows could be lost in some of those thickets.

We've Got HONEY

Our little bees have been very busy this summer.  

 The bee guy came a few days ago to rob the hive.  He said we had lots of bees and some good honey.

 He took the honey back to his house and filtered it into a large bucket which he brought back.  For all of this he only kept a couple of pints for himself.

 All's we had to do was open the spigot and run it into jars.  How simple is that!

 And look what we got, 1 quart, 8 pints, and 13 half pints (2 gallons and 1/2 pint total).

It's beautiful and clear and tastes yummy.  Got any good recipes?

More on Brother's Training

J has decided to try and do more of the farm work on horse back.  Now that he is training Brother, he is finding out how much fun it can be when you have a good horse.  

 Saturday, J needed to rotate the cattle so off we went on Brother and Otoelene.  (Wouldn't it be nice to have gates we could work from horseback?)

 The cattle had to go through one gate and out another.  They are pretty well trained to this and it is usually no trouble.

 They are always anxious to get to new pasture.

 We then rode around some more to different places to get Brother more exposure to all thing on the farm.

 As you can see from all of my picture angles, Brother doesn't mind taking the lead.

 That means J gets to the gates first so he gets to open them.

 I love the texture of these hedge apples.  I wish there was a way to preserve them for decorations.

 We had never taken Brother across Cripple Creek and didn't know how he would do with such a long water crossing.  But there was nothing to worry about.  He took the lead again and plodded right across.

 The wide open bottom didn't even excite him.

 J even worked a little on trotting and turning in the open.

 Then back across and back to the house.

Oh, and Otoelene did great as usual.  It is so nice to have horses that you can take out and go anywhere with and not fear for your life.  Every time we ride them I just keep thinking about going and getting another one to train.  It is so rewarding and they are such good minded horses.

Just Kit Sunday # 26

Kit decided to check out the pears when I was photographing them last week.  

 I think he thought he might be more important than the pears, which of course he is.

 He even did a close up inspection.

Not too sure what that face means, but it doesn't look good.

To Cut or Not To Cut, That Is The Question

When you start with nothing and have little twigs to plant, it is very difficult to imagine what trees will look like when they get bigger.  I think I over planted some.  

 I'm thinking of taking out this crabpple tree,

and this red bud tree.   Any thoughts?

From Wonder Horse to Bad Boy

Hank may have pushed his Wonder Horse status a little too far today.  We got the dreaded early morning phone call saying the horses were all out on highway 21.  Hank usually just jumps the cattle guard into the yard, but on snowy days, when the cattle gaurd has been packed with snow, he has lead some of the other horses astray down the road.  Today there was no snow but it had been very windy and the cattle guard was full of leaves.  Also, we knew he had taught Brother to jump the cattle guard because J had found them before in the yard together.  

Now Bad Boy

 Anyway, we rushed down the driveway in search of the horses.  Little Girl, Pep and Otoelene were all good girls and were still in the field where they belonged.  After several stops and going down dead ends, we finally found the others in the back of someone's yard.  Leading them home I could tell Wrangler was limping.  It looked like he was having a problem with his shoe.

 Well, this was what I found when I got him home.  He somehow managed to pull half off, bend it, and smash it back down over his frog.  It took J and I 20 minutes and half the tools in the toolbox to do what the farrier could do in 2 minutes.  

 Now Wrangler is in the rock free lot.  He is still limping some even without the shoe so I gave him a little Bute.

Hopefully, the farrier will be able to come out before his hoof breaks off too much.  We think he must have gotten hung up in the cattle guard because there were a lot of scratches on the concrete and I couldn't find any other injuries on him anywhere.   And of course, we were wanting to take him to a horse show on Sunday.  Oh well, just hope he recovers soon.