Milking the Steer

We took Morty to Flemingsburg this morning. Cathryn is splitting him with a guy I work with. He's organic. He's never had a steroid or growth hormone. He only ate grass, hay and a little grain in the winter.
 We wormed the sheep yesterday afternoon. They come running when Lisa calls them.

 Such good sheep. They trotted right into the barn. That's Paige watching from safety.

 They are a good bunch. No one was stressed out or bothered by the ordeal.

 Morty weighed in at 965 pounds.

 Norman likes milk. Unfortunately that isn't a cow. That's Beavis the steer.

 I spread compost on the exposed clay that was left from the hydrant installation. The clay doesn't seem to support the grass so it needed some enhancement.

 After spreading the compost and seeding we covered it with some hay.

 We went over to Montgomery County Greenhouses this afternoon and got some plants. The flowers are snapdragons, marigolds and petunias. The veggies are cucumbers, squash and a roma tomato.

The Paige pictures have been wildly successful and there have been thousands of requests for wallpapers. Today's Paige pictures are presented in standard computer screen aspect ratios to better fit your monitor.

Dudley Gets Rammy

Dudley was assigned his first away mission. The sheep farmers from Fayette County came over and picked him up on Saturday. Our other ram, Duane was already booked for Edith and another farm after that.

 Lisa went down Saturday morning to clean up some more flood debris before the new rain storms came.

 Dudley broke his horn ramming his head against the catch pen. There was bleating and bleeding.

 They came up to the top of the hill with their trailer before we could tell them it was a bad idea. They managed to get it turned around.

 The sheep had fun with the pile of flood debris.

 Andy helped me get the trailer in position  to load Morty for his date with destiny.

 Cathryn was in Ohio for a seminar so she  came by to visit.

 Paige.

Fill for the Puddle

We had a couple of nice days between rains so we got a few things done.

 The chicks don't need their stall so it got cleaned out. "Clean" is relative in this sense.

 The chick panels are stored in the hay shed.

 I put some Rust-oleum Rubberized Sealant on the hay shed roof. The grommets around the screws deteriorated so it had a few leaks.

 One of the leghorns.

 The leghorns are bigger than the Rhode Island Reds.

 I was replacing the rechargeable batteries in the driveway solar lights. Speedy observed.

  Cathryn came up from Florida to meet her steer Morty. He'll be going home with her next month. They were bonding over alfalfa cubes.

 I got some chipped stone and rock dust from the quarry to fill in the puddle in the driveway. It was getting bigger so it was time to fix it.

 The material is more dense than gravel, this was 1 1/2 tons. The half ton pickup was a little overloaded. It's good we live close to the quarry. We did get the truck fixed last week.

 Paige.

Slow Day

It was rainy all day today. The temperature was around 60 when we got up this morning and it's around 45 now. It was a steady slow rain so no flooding here this time. Yesterday Lisa got most of the remaining flood debris collected and I helped her throw it on the burn pile. We wanted to till the rest of the garden but it was still too wet from the last rain. It isn't drying out any today.

 It was cloudy and grey outside my office window. At least everything is green now.

 The girls took most of the day off. They got up a few time and did some cursory barking but nothing too strenuous.

 Paige didn't even go out much today.

Tree Corral

Last year we decided to keep some of the Locust tree saplings. They always come up but usually we mow them down or the cattle use them for toothpicks.

  They aren't a very well liked tree species. They're invasive, hard to kill and have big thorns all over them. On the plus side, they are fast growing and make good shade.

 Lisa in the catch pen. The sheep wanted to be in there with her. She had food.

 The AT&T guy called this morning to fix the phone. I told him I already fixed it because they were late. He offered to come out and put a professional patch in. Okay, his is a little better than mine but I think mine would have worked just fine.

 We picked up a few sticks out of the cow pasture. Lisa had a load of grass clippings for the silt dam. We stacked the sticks on the burn pile.

 While we had Speedy locked up we worked on the fence across the creek.

 The flood eroded the dirt around the base of the post so we dumped two bags of concrete around it. Maybe some brilliant engineer will come up with a solution to this problem. It needs to be something that will give way in a flood but drop back into place after the water recedes. It can be supported by the existing posts but should be independent of the existing fencing so if something catches it it doesn't pull the whole fence down. It should be constructed at nearly no cost.

 Paige in profile.

Free Range Chicks

We had some phone and Internet trouble after the last flood. The AT&T phone repair people never did show up so I fixed it myself. You may recall this post from last October. We cut the phone line then and I repaired it. Apparently in the recent flood there was some water intrusion. I dug it up and fixed it differently this time. Hopefully it works out better.

 In other news. I gathered up some old fence wire we had laying around and took it over to Nelson's. They make regular runs to the scrap yard with their dump trailer.

 Norman is still growing and still the worlds largest 4 week old calf. At least in our world.

 I cut up the old rotten tree that we pulled out of the creek. The flood had wedged it into the bridge grate.

 I used wire nuts this time instead of butt connectors.

 The underground burial splice enclosures were too expensive so I made some of my own. It's just a plastic container with a lid. I made a cut in the top to feed the wires through and filled the cup with silicone sealant. Then I twisted the connections into the sealant and snapped the lid on. The connections will be embedded in a solid chunk of silicone when it dries.

  I used an old trimmer parts tube for the other one. Lets hope these stay dry for a while.

 I think that's Ivy's boy lamb between the fence and the sheep catch pen. He's rubbing off his winter hair both sides at the same time.

 I lit the burn barrel today. It had some rotten twine and old hay along with the bark off the old tree. It was smelly.

 The chicks got to come out for the first time yesterday. The White Leghorns are ours. The Rhode Island Reds are Cathryn's.

 They are officially "free range" chickens now.

 Paige.

Growth

We're seeing more and more signs of Spring.

 Lisa moved the tomato starts into bigger pots. These are the Beefmasters.

 The raised strawberry bed is doing well.

 The Macintosh apple trees are blooming.

 This was one of the stick trees from last year. We think it is a crabapple.

 The onions started poking out.

 The salad bowl lettuce is coming up too.

 We had a lot of rain last night and some of the worst flash flooding we've seen yet.

 The water was at least 6 inches over the top of the curb on our driveway bridge. It bent the 14' gate in the bottom pasture. Lisa went down and cleared the debris from the fence crossings.

 Paige. Luna, the beautiful photo-bomber.