Last week, when we were at our favorite stone yards getting some materials for our kid kits, we spied a big stack of pallets and had to ask the yard man. He says, oh, we have tons, in fact two semi truck trailers of them. We just usually take them down the road to be shredded. We have no use for them after we get them.

OH MY GOSH…. Really? I asked if we could have some and he said, sure, as many as you want!!!

Oh my… well come Thursday, if the weather is good, we’re going over there with Blue, and Steve is meeting us with his pickup and my friend and fellow homesteader Tena, is meeting us there with her truck and stock trailer!!! Oh my gosh! I hope we can get quite a few with those three vehicles and helping hands!

And these are NICE pallets… since they held stone, they are all hardwood and very solid. They will make for some fantastic builds here at the little farm! Pallets are so useful and FREE! Yeah, some projects will require some dismantling, but most of the things I want to do are going to be using solid pallets. That just seems a lot easier!

We started the great wall of Windhaven last week… we only had 9 pallets to work with, but we wanted to get something up between the eastern edge of the garden area and the pony barn so that we could turn out the hoofies safely in the back pasture. It only took us a couple hours, Maggie and I and in the end, the only cost was 5 heavy duty t-posts and a thing of wire to wrap them together. $30.

On the pony barn side, we are going to use 2 of our 3 auction find panels. They were in the pony barn, but Cody doesn’t need them. They were all wired in to keep him away from the opening that leads into the poultry barn. But since we put up the heavy plastic and there was a homemade panel fence that we could use over the biggest opening, I’m sure he will leave it all alone. Come spring, we’ll probably put a gate in that opening and take down some of the plastic for him.

Now one of the panels is rusted on the bottom, so we buried that into a big patch of tiger lillies and tall grasses right at the corner. I am hoping that it will just overgrow and help to keep it firmly in place. It got a post as well on each corner. The second one, a good one, will be our gate whenever we want to bring compost in from the barns, into the garden area. Or if we want to mow, etc. The third is just temporary because we need two more pallets to finish the wall. It’s going to go out in the chicken barn when we convert it over for sheep and chickens…

Maggie is adding the final touches to the fence.

It might not be the nicest looking fence, but it’s not in the front yard, it’s way back on the property. And come spring, we’re going to get a paint sprayer and that will really help to dress them up, a good coat of paint. It will make them all uniform looking. I think brown or green will be the color. White will stand out just a little too much for me.

They do a great job of keeping the sheep and pony in. Now they can go out into the back pasture area and graze on a year’s worth of fodder. No one has really been out there eating since we lost the sheep through this trouble area. Now, it’s nice and safe. That feels good.

When we get the motherlode of pallets, hopefully on Thursday (if the weather is good) then we’ll be able to do even more area fencing, and create grazing zones throughout the acreage. That will really help to keep the place in good order and not overgrown or overgrazed. Rotational grazing just makes good sense, even when you’re talking 3 acres. In fact, I think it makes even MORE sense when you have a smaller homestead, you can keep the frequently used areas from becoming mud pits!