The western front pasture’s salad bar is now open for business!

The nine hoofies of Windhaven have all been out to graze upon this lush lush pasture of perfect grazing.  A lovely mix of grass, clover and just a touch of weeds that make sheepies and ponies crazy for it.

It all started with a friend and a roll of fence that was buried in his weeds out by one of his barns.  Uncle Rod to the rescue!!!

It was actually close to 200 feet of fence!  He said it was over 30 years old and yeah, it’s not super pretty, but it is going to do the job!  We thought we might be able to get it into Blue, but it was much bigger than the picture above, so sweet Uncle Rod rolled that sucker right up in his pickup with a couple boards and brought it over for us!

(He’s really Jr and Julia’s Uncle Rod, but we’ve adopted him!)

One happy pony!  One hard working girl in the background!

 

Now, one side of the pasture is already fenced, because it’s part of the permimiter fence of the middle yard.  That gave us about 70 feet there!  But the rest is open and so we got to unrolling, and slamming fence posts into the ground.  We did have a few posts by the garage side that we are using some slab wood to make a sort of decorative/functional fence, too.  So we used those for the wire fencing too.

With hay being so high and the rain just FINALLY starting to fall with a little more regularity, our grass is finally green and growing again.  However, the middle and barn yards are still so short and overgrazed, we just have to get more new virgin spaces opened up for them.  This is the first and smallest of the pastures we have to open up.  This is 70 foot by 70 foot square, over 4,000 square feet of lovely grazing!

 

 

There were a few places where the fencing was broken, or cut.  So Jessy was the pro at wiring it tight with new wire, weaving it through and in so that it’s better than before.  We do not plan on this being an all day pasture, or one that is open to the flock all the time.  It’s too close to the road.  It’s a let’s go graze for a few hours pasture, where we can keep an eye on you in the daylight from the studio.  If we make it more of a treat, like a lunch counter, they will spend all their time there grazing for the most part.  Once we see them laying down and meandering about, with full bellies of sweet clover, we call them back into the middle so they can rest and chew their cud.  It’s a perfect rotational pasture to give the middle yard a break!

In the back corner of this new pasture is our old recliner.  We got it at a garage sale for $20 a while ago and it’s in rough shape.  The recliner part stopped working and it was really uncomfortable!  We tried to find it a new home but no one wanted it.  So we just moved it back there to slowly decay.  Now the kitties love to hang out on it.  It’s pretty cool.

Little Baron is a happy boy on his recliner.  It gives him a nice vantage point!

 

Jessy is our chief livestock corrections officer.  She can spot a malcontent at a hundred paces.  She is watching the flock to see if there are any more spots that need improvement.  So far, everyone is very content in the little pasture and mostly focused on eating as much as they can.

 

What is very cool about the new pasture space is that it should help us on our hay requirements.  The more we can open up places for  the animals to graze, the better things will be.  We just keep having wonderful things happen to make it easier.  Gifts of fencing keep showing up. And good deals on stuff that helps the whole farm.  It’s good stuff.  It’s wonderful stuff!

 

Today we let Gideon out with everyone to graze with everyone and he enjoyed it very much.  He’s becoming quite the little stud muffin!  He’s a bit of a handful at times, but we love him.  Soon, in a few months, he’ll be helping to expand our herd.  We hope!  Shetlands go into season in the fall, so it’s not that far around the corner.  Hopefully this nice flush of good grazing will help to make it a great lambing season in the spring!  We’ll see how it all goes!  In the meanwhile, Gideon is enjoying the new pasture for sure!

We’re glad that we have some more fence from this roll left and a few other odds and ends.  We’ll keep working on opening up new areas.  Every day is a step forward towards our goals and plans.  It’s a wonderful life for sure!

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