I am happy to report that we have managed to get nearly all of our fencing plans accomplished.
It’s been a hard road to travel, but one that has given us a lot of wonderful opportunities to get the homestead closer to our dream farm. We have officially retired the Ronco Livestock o Matic Movable Grazing Enclosure! (gg)
Actually, it was only in use for a day or two, but they liked it. They would live up and wait for their turn to go in the LOM to graze on that nice lovely grass! You can certainly see the difference between the pasture and the barnyard!
The book has helped certainly, and has raised about $100 in sales and donations. We really really appreciate that!
This allowed us to get part of the area we call the weed patch fenced in.
We moved some of our fencing around as the animals grazed an area down. It was hard work, but you do what you gotta do. Turning the flock into an new 100 foot area was a delight for them and for us to watch them put their noses down and inhale the sweet fresh grass. Once you let them into an area, you would not hear anything save the munching and grinding of those little teeth and the silent soft swish as they moved through the grass, grazing.
We had to mow down part of the pasture as it had gotten too high for the sheep.
Sheep do not like to graze in tall grass. Too tall and they will just ignore it. Between Maggie and I, we mowed down 3 feet tall grasses and weeds! Ugh! With a push mower! I am going to be SO happy when we get the last of the fencing done and we only have a few areas that we will have to mow.
Unless I can come up with a nice simple portable grazing force field!
This is the weed patch just moments after we opened up the area for them. It took the flock about a good week to really strip down the excess vegetation. We would let them in for a few hours and then bring them out to help conserve the grass and to rest the other areas.
I love when they walk in formation. It’s pretty funny, sometimes they walk two by two and other times in a nice straight line. Other times it’s in groups of five. Like they planned it somehow.
And don’t worry! Gideon has been out and grazing all over the place. He gets turned out in the morning for a few hours when the rest of the flock is somewhere else. We are purposely keeping them apart a bit, because, well, we want everyone to be excited to see each other come breeding season! It’s just been for a few weeks. They still get to visit when he’s in his paddock and they are loose in the middle yard. And of course, he has all his chicken friends as well. And Gideon really likes when he gets to go out into a pasture and graze by himself.
Jr. helped us out greatly by getting that slab wood slats up on the front pasture we call the Salad Bar. It’s just on two sides, mostly decorative, but it’s helping to keep the old rusty fence intact. By nailing it to the slab wood and using a bunch of wire, we were able to make it a pretty secure fence. Again, we don’t leave everyone in there all the time, or give them access all the time, it’s a treat for them. That way, when we do give them time out there, they are busy grazing, not walking around testing the slightly weak fence. The fence that divides the salad bar and the middle is good and strong, and now the two other sides are good with the slab wood. We just have the far back (western) side that is a little weak. We have strengthened it with lots of new wire every time we find a break. And thankfully, it’s only Fergus and Ivy that seem to want to test the fence. And they are easy to catch. Usually, they just want the grass on the other side of the fence and will stand there and graze after they pop themselves out of some small little hole. It’s quite amazing how small they can make themselves when they are after a tasty mouthful of sweet grass!
We can see this pasture from the house easily, so when they are out there, we keep a good watch on them. Eventually, we would like to get a new piece of wire fence to run along that 50 or so feet. It’s something for Craigslist for sure!
Here is another view of the weed patch pasture, with Maggie taking a break from mowing it down. She really has been a trooper with her mowing this year! She and our trusty old Toro have been through a lot. I know that soon we will have to replace the beast as it has been worked on and worked on, tuned up, sharpened again and again. She’s running rough again, but her work is nearly done for another season and in the spring, we’ll give her another good tuneup! Hopefully by then we will have nearly all the areas enclosed and the sheep will do a good job of keeping it all grazed down! Then we’ll only have the strip across the front of the house and the little eastern area that we MIGHT consider fencing in to make the dog yard bigger and also give the sheep access to mowing it down now and then.
Anything that they can do, and we don’t have to, it wonderful! They convert the biomass into energy, wool and flesh and we don’t have to buy gas and push the mower around in a fairly useless task and waste of time. I would like it if the mower had a very very part time job here at the farm! That would be delightful!
I must report, this is the nicest thing that we have created in a while, here. We are getting better and better at building and making good solid improvements! This little picket gate fence is SUPER solid and strong. I made it out of 2 x 4s and pickets from a broken run of fence. Yes, it needs a coat of paint, but other than that, it’s so nice! I dug the two heavy 4 x 4 posts into the ground 2 feet and cemented them. And used a good strong pair of heavy duty hinges on the backside. I don’t have a latch yet, because I want to find a real pretty one. So it’s just got a bit of chain for now. Which is fine because the garden is winding down and will be a bit remote as the winter comes upon us.
We reused a piece of 50 foot rabbit guard fence and then bought another 50 foot section to give us just about enough to fence the outer perimeter of the garden in. The fence is not super high, only about 3 foot, but since the sheep are less than that, it works. This has allowed us to let the flock in for very limited and supervised grazing between the raised beds and such now that most of the beds are finished. We had a frost last night and it pretty much finished the last of the garden. I think if they sheep were really frightened, or paniced, they might push through or over this fence, but that is pretty rare of an occurance around here. We let them in for an hour or two, usually when we are doing chores or are out puttering in the garden and they are behaving themselves very nicely. They have grazed down all the weeds and higher grass for me and now I don’t have to mow in there! That’s awesome. And I think that next year, I’ll be able to let them in with supervision to graze down the grassy areas once a week or so. They kind of ignore the raised beds because they are about as tall as they are! And with all the nice sweet grass, they would rather eat the ground level stuff than work too hard for goodies.
As the garden plans continue to expand, I hope for less and less grass and this will probably become an off limits area for the hoof stock except in the late fall and winter… and it’s reassuring that this once open area is now somewhat protected from ovine flight! I will definitely be keeping my eye out for more picket fence… my dream would be to eventually have the whole garden encased in a cute white picket fence! I have one side done… just need two more really. (One side is the poultry barn, so well, that doesn’t really need to be fenced in…) It’s a plan!
It’s looking cuter and cuter! I hope that I can get a coat of paint on the fence before it gets too cold. It’s in the cards, we’ll just see if it gets to the top of the list! Right now we are working on winterizing the buildings and that has much more priority than a coat of paint. The animals need to be protected at night when it gets down to freezing! It has been pretty darn cold the last couple nights!
Momma Noel wants to go and visit the garden! Waaa! or is that Baaaaa!
They are pretty funny, they will go to the fence and just stand there, waiting. They really like to go into the new areas and have learned quickly that they can get access if they ask for it, in their own way. They will stand in front of the weedpatch gate or over by the salad bar when they want to go in and graze. They are so fun!
The courtyard fence got a good coat of sealer paint. I liked the weathered gray look, but it was apparent, that if we wanted to keep this gate in tact, it needed a good solid coat of a good sealing paint. We had a full gallon of mis-tinted brown expensive Thompson water sealer paint/stain and it was perfect! We did the front side with a brush and it took 2 days!!! And then we borrowed the neighbors paint sprayer and the back side took about an hour. Shesh! We learned out lesson… Though a bit mess to use and clean up, the savings in time over a brush, unbelievable. And it did a good job. Next year we plan to really dress up the courtyard with some shrubs and flowers, new grass and all that. It just wasn’t in the cards this year.
We only have one big area left to fence in. We are getting there. 350 more feet and we will be done with the major fencing improvements of the homestead. There are few areas that will need to be improved and strengthened eventually, mostly our last couple pallet fences, but they are working and are still strong. There is a bit of fence at the north side of the middle yard that we may or may not remove… still debating on that. But in the meanwhile, we are getting there. Little by little. We need to raise about $200 more to finish that back pasture. Our own company sales are starting to perk up a bit and I’m hoping that I’ll get about $50 or so towards the last posts we need by this weekend. That is the goal. Little by little! The roll of fence is $160 bucks, and that will be the last big expense. We’ll get there. We just keep saving and we’ll get there. Maggie has been mowing the pasture and bagging it, to bring the clippings in for everyone to eat! They love it… she fills up the wheelbarrow and they treat it like a big ice cream party! That grass is not going to waste. And once we get it fenced, it will be lush and ready to fill up their bellies and give them late fall grazing for another month or so. Even dried, it’s something and they will graze on it all winter long. We will have to suppliment with hay eventually, but opening up these last couple areas has helped SO MUCH… Hay is finally coming down in price, it’s about $6 a bale now, so we are happy. It got as high as $12 a square bale and that is just unbelievable around here. Just a year ago we were only paying $3.50 a bale!
We found out that a feed store in a nearby town sells bales one at a time to it’s customers and that is really awesome. We can go and buy a couple bales and bring them easily home. A bale will last my flock about 3 days. I do intend on making a good sized purchase (for us) of about 50 bales soon, just so it’s easier than having to tote bales in the cold, but knowing that I can just get a bale or two without feeling weird and inconveniencing a hay farmer (they have to come and open up the barns and all and usually you have to make a phone call or two and make a time… feels awkward when you only want a couple bales… ) Now I can just stop in the store whenever, and just ask for a couple bales along with a bag of chicken feed and some dog chow! Yah! Way cool… He has straw, too!
So wish us luck on that last dang pasture. It’s the biggest and the best… full of clover and not a weed in sight. All grass and beautiful. The sheepies go up to the fence and peer in like orphans at the candy store window. I would LOVE to let them in there, but it’s all open in the back and I do not want to chase their little wandering ovine butts all over my neighbors fields. Done that once and never want to do it again!!! It’s hard to walk through plowed fields! It’s not flat and easy walking, it’s lumpy and loose and in rows and such.
I’ve considered like a leash setup but that usually ends in a comical pile up of sheepies. They are not very good on a leash. Naw, just gotta be patient… we’ll get there. We’ve managed to do over 700 feet of fencing this summer on very limited funds, great deals, Craigslist and wonderful friends with offerings. It’s our last big hurdle! We got our furnace installed 2 weeks ago and we are so nice and warm here in the farmhouse. Brand new, 90% efficient, clean and quiet. We love it. Things are really starting to look up and shape up and the place feels so like home, I’m beginning to think we were all born here. The winter will bring some more improvements inside the house and by next spring, we’ll be ready for a super garden and fresh pastures all around… and hopefully, a bumper crop of little sweet lambies!!!!
How cool will that be???
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