Living Off the Land: Escaped Donkey

For some reason we always end up doing most of our clearing and burning during the hottest part of the summer. This year is no exception. Here's animated gif that I took of a recent burn and yes, it's as hot as it looks. I don't know why I do this to myself.

From 2015-06-09

We also had some excitement when Sadie the Donkey escaped. As I drove down the road to the property a couple days ago, I came around a corner and much to my surprise, there she was standing in the neighbors yard. They were really nice and kept an eye on her until I could come back and get her.

Luckily Sadie was in a good mood and let me put her halter on and gently followed me down the road. Last time she escaped we had to tie her to the back of the truck and pretty much drag her back to the pen.

When I got to the pen I did a quick inspection to find out how she got out and the picture below shows what I found. The side gate was wide open. When I saw it, my first impression was that someone had maliciously opened it.

To prove this theory I walked all around looking for footprints but couldn't see any trace of someone being there. I felt pretty confident in this analysis since the ground was muddy and I'm sure I would have seen footprints. With that being said, I still think it's weird that Sadie would push the gate that wide open. Hmmm.

From 2015-06-09

A recent project I've done has been to fix the front gate. The guys who originally built it didn't put any bracing wire on it and at some point the weight ended up cracking the post.

From 2015-06-09

I had to jackhammer out the old post, which turned out being a lot harder than I thought. They did a lot better job cementing in the post than they did bracing it.

From 2015-06-09

The new post is in and the cement is dried. Ready to hang the gate.

From 2015-06-09

It's really nice to be able to open the gate now and not have it drag the ground.

From 2015-06-09

My other project has been to re-fence the winter pen and square it up instead of having it nailed to trees. It's been a lot of work but will look really nice when it's done.