Enjoying the heat wave

We decided a good way to spend a hot July Saturday was to burn off some of the burn piles we've been accumulating. Actually, I can think of a lot of other things I'd rather do. Unfortunately, we had to get it done before we could move forward with more tree clearing.

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From Drop Box

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The goats have been doing a good job clearing as well. On the right of the trail is the area they completely ate down, and on the left an untouched area. As you can see, there is quite a difference. I just wish they could eat cedar trees. I still have to go in and clear those with a chainsaw or the bulldozer.

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We've been experimenting with temporary goat shelters and have come up with this, our latest design. Sethie came up with a good idea of bending the wire fence panel between the trees, to use the trees for anchors. So far, it looks like it will work well. Now we just need to figure out how to make a shelter for Sadie the donkey. The goat shelters are just too short.

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From Drop Box

The goats enjoyed relaxing in the shade while we setup the fence and the shelters in their new area. It brings to mind the questions, who owns who?

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Reclaiming the land

As we start clearing the overgrown cedar thickets and letting the goats clear the understory, the ground is getting the first sunlight it’s seen in 30 years. The plan is to clear the old corral to the point where we can plant grass. I’m hoping this will help supplement the goats diet over the winter as well as organizing and beautifying it.

We've spent the last couple of weeks knocking down trees, sorting them, and burning the leftovers.

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I found this interesting spot last week while cutting down some cedars in the old corral.

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Lot's of mushrooms growing out of Sadie's deposits. What better way could there be to fertilize these dead spots.

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New electric fence

The poor goats were getting hungry because they'd totally devoured every living thing in their first corral, except the cedars, which not even bugs like. We were a little concerned because it takes a lot of time, effort and cost to build a new corral with field fence, not mention the permanence. After all, we're not trying to clear cut a field. Just thin things out, to make it more useable.

With this in mind, I started researching new options such as avalanche fence, panels and electric fence in an effort to find a cheaper, portable solution.

I figured the best place to start my research would be with how people who rent out goats to clear brush do it. I checked several of their websites and in each picture, I could see a white, meshy kind of fence that I'd never seen in stores before.

After a lot of searching, I finally figured out that it was electric netting. It's almost like the wire light nets that you use on bushes at Christmas. I was excited to find out that it's fairly inexpensive. For about 500 feet of fence and a battery/energizer kit, I paid about $500 as compared to $600+ for 660 feet of field fence (without posts or hardware).

Here we are starting out on the experiment. As you can see, the goats will have their work cut out for them.

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The first step was to use the bush hog and bulldozer to clear a fence line because electric fences don't work well with a lot of brush growing up around them. We were able to cut all the trees and bushes and clear fence line in a couple hours of hard work.

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Next we layed out the net, to get a rough idea of how long it would be, and where we might have trouble spots with rocks, trees, etc.

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Luckily, the built in posts went in the ground easily and held the tension well.

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Sawyer was my hard working helper. By lunchtime we'd completely enclosed the area. We were kind of worried about whether it was working because I'd forgotten to bring my voltmeter. So we decided to do it the old fashioned way, putting an old dry stick on the fence. There was a enough voltage to feel a little tingle when you rubbed the stick along the line. Nothing painful. Just enough to make your skin prickle a little bit. However, we were sure it was working after we put the goats in and one of them tried to follow us. Poor Gracie touched the fence and jumped a couple feet in the air and yelped. We were sad for her, but glad the fence worked. I'm going down tonight to check it out and see if it's still working. fingers are crossed!

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Storms and new goat pen

Saturday at the prop was an interesting day. The morning started off beautifully, with partial clouds, low humidity and blessed cool temps. However, after we'd been out working for a couple hours, some light rain came through. We were kind of enjoying some forced downtime while we rode out the storm under the pavilion.

After a while it stopped and we thought the storm was over and it was time to get back to work. As we stood around, trying to figure out what to do, we saw some super fast clouds moving up on us, so we headed back under the pavilion as the drops began to fall. However, that didn't last long. Strong, straight line winds began to hit us, then the deluge dropped. The wind was blowing rain in every direction and I'd guess we got at least an inch of rain in about 45 minutes.

Here's a look at the clouds moving in. I tried to get some video but it was moving too quick and I couldn't get it going before the downpour hit.

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Unfortunately, for poor Gracie and Little Momma, they were off in the temporary corral and got drenched by the downpour. I wanted to go get them back to the shelter, but the lighting and heavy rain was just too much. I hope they don't get sick.

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I was finally able to burn all the leftover wood from the old cabin, before the downpour, and begin the new road to where I want to put all my gear. Once I get it cleared out, I'll move the big carport over here.

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I also got a start on the new goat pen. I used the bulldozer to start clearing a path so I can get the quad back in there with my fence stretcher. As you can see from the picture, even with 4 passes with the dozer, it's still very overgrown. The goats will have their work cut out for them.

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Goat corral is finished

The vision keeps moving closer to reality. I've finally got the corral set up and secured and have begun training the goats to follow me over to it. The idea is to have a portable corral that we can move around to various places that need clearing.

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I then get the goats to follow me from the pen to the area and let them eat all day. I'd leave them longer but it's not really big enough for Sadie the guard donkey and she's tough to get over and back. The first time we tried, it took a stressful hour to get her back in. I'm also concerned that a predator might get the goats without Sadie there to protect them.

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I've been wondering lately why, after two years of steady work at the property, I still find it enjoyable. I was never able to put it into words until I heard a great saying, at church last night, that expresses it perfectly.

"Vision without work is dreaming. Work without vision is drudgery."

It's also cicada season. I had a few drop on me from the bushes, but I saw more husks than I did live ones. Here's a husk caught in a spider web. The most interesting thing is the sound they make. It sounds almost like an jet approaching from the distance. It's a weird, long steady whine, that's not like anything I've heard before. It's kind of creepy.

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Another Flood Scare

We had some huge storms come through this week. In fact, they were so bad that several hundred people were killed across the South. We escaped without much damage, but we did get a huge amount of rain. To give you an idea of how much, check out the sink holes

The first picture is what it normally looks like. The bottom of the sink hole is about 25-30 feet deep at the deep end and probably 15 feet wide.

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Another view

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Here's what the water level looks like after a major storm a few years ago. Notice the hole is about 1/4 full

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Now here's the hole after the storm last week. Doing a rough estimate, it would hold about 20000 gallons of water. Also, it probably would have been more full if it hadn't been draining at the bottom, like a bathtub.

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A few feet away is another sink hole. It's not quite as deep, but it's a lot longer and has a big cave at the bottom.

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Amazingly, it's filled up to within about 3 feet from the top. What an amazing amount of water. The weird thing is that both these holes will be completely dry within a couple days. Where does it all go?

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Making progress

Spring has hit with a vengeance and we're scrambling, trying to get the cedar logs out of the forest, that we cut last year when we made the perimeter trail.

I'd kind of forgotten about them, out of sight, out of mind and all. Well, I talked to a guy who mills cedar and found out how much we get could get for the finished boards from milling some of the big logs and my motivation was rekindled.

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It was pretty tough work getting the logs out of the forest though. We had to go in with the quad and chain them up, one or two at a time, and drag them back to our sorting pile.

It also helped talking to the miller about how to size the logs. We've decided to make the 4-5 inch into unfinished fence posts, 6-7 inch into to finished fence posts and mill 8" and higher into 1x6's or 2x4s. As you can see from the picture above, we're starting to get a pretty good pile, that mainly comes from the trail I built last year.


On the mushroom front, things haven't been going as well. I think the spawn we bought last year was killed when it sat on our porch for a couple days in the middle of summer. Why is it that UPS always delivers when your gone. It's happened to often to be an unlucky coincidence.

None of the spawn I planted has grown yet. However, I have an old hay bale sitting around that has sprouted grass and mushrooms like mad. Now if I can only get the same thing to happen where I want it to.

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