Don't Fence Me In

We were able to accomplish a lot this weekend. Things worked out to where everyone but Sammy was able to come down to the prop and help with projects

One of my ongoing projects is to burn a big brush pile where I want to put my pole barn. the problem is the stupid pile wont burn. My third try, below, was unsuccessful as well.

It started off well, but when I came back  later, I was frustrated to see that it'd burned itself out and barely made a dent. I guess I'm going to have to bite the bullet and douse it with $4 a gallon diesel.

From 2012-02-23

The main project of the day was to continue fencing in the new goat area. We're excited to get this large area fenced off.

Not only will it make for less maintenance, i.e. feeding, it will also allow us to grow a bigger herd. One of my milestones was to increase the herd size if we were able to keep our original group alive for a year. Well, it's getting close to a year, so I guess it's time to take the next step.

From 2012-02-23

The hardest part about putting the fence in is clearing the fenceline. One technique we use is to lay out the proposed line by putting down a string.

Seeing the string really helps give a sense of the best route to take. There have already been several times we changed the fence line after seeing the string.

From 2012-02-23

As you can see from these pics, we had a lot of clean up to do.  It worked out well pulling the truck through as a  measure of whether the road was wide enough.  Its also nice having all my gear sitting on the tailgate as we work.

So far, we've been lucky and able to do really longs runs. One of the biggest time killers is hooking up all the chains and stretchers.  However, we have some sections coming up that are not going to be as friendly. The serpentine section will be a killer.

From 2012-02-24

Suz was a great help. She went ahead of me with the clippers and cut out all the smaller brush and tossed aside the stuff I cut up with the chainsaw.

From 2012-02-24

Sarah was a big help too. She would help me stretch the fence and hook up all the bolts and chains. It saved a lot of work having her get the low bolts and grabbing things from the truck. She even saved the roll of fence from hitting the ground by catching it with her head.  Way to take one for the team Sarah!

From 2012-02-24

It was very enjoyable having such nice company to work with.

From 2012-02-24

Below is an example of how we stretch the fence. It's makes things alot easier when we get a well positioned tree to tie the chains to.  Notice the nice vertical stretcher and the right angles to the come-along?  Excellent craftsmanship! Very nice!

From 2012-02-24

Growing Grass and Building Trails

We had some great weather so Seth and I decided make a quick trip down to the prop and take care of some chores and get a little bit of our project work done.

I'd read somewhere that wherever you put down hay, grass will grow.  When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense since hay is basically grass.  We have a lot of extra straw left over from cleaning out the goat's stall, so we decided to put this to test idea and make a project out of it.

We've been taking the soiled straw and spreading it out over the areas we've cleared and I'm happy to report that the experiment is a success!  It was exciting to come back after a couple weeks and see grass growing out of the piles we put down.  I'm looking forward to seeing how it takes off when spring gets here.

 

Our other project this winter has been to cut some more trails.  There's a several acre corner of the prop that we originally bypassed because it was so thick that I wasn't able to cut a trail.  Now that I have a bulldozer and a bush hog, I figured  some thick brush and trees would be no problem and we decided to open it up.  Not surprisingly, the bulldozer worked great and we made a trail in a couple hours that would have taken days doing it by hand.

Seth's job was to ride the quad over the freshly bulldozed trail and start packing it down.  As you can see, he threw himself into his work.

Seth managed to get stuck in one of the sinkholes.  He was so hung up in the trees and stumps that I thought we were going to have to use the bulldozer to pull him out.  The  original idea was to make the bowl into a riding area, but it ended up being like a roach motel.  You check in, but you don't check out.  We might have to ponder this experiment a little more.



Before packing the trail down, it's hard to tell the difference between the forest and the trail, but you can definitely feel the difference when you ride it.  No bushes whipping you in the face or stumps to get stuck on.

As I was bulldozing, I pulled up this big, flat rock.  It doesn't look that big in the picture, but it's actually about 3-4 feet high and a uniform 3 or 4 inches thick.  I like to leave interesting rocks around to use as landmarks.  We give them names so we can use them for reference points.  I'm thinking of naming this one keystone since it reminds me of the keystone symbol.