Trained Heidi

Heidi has been away at school. Lisa got to ride her today for the first time.

Lisa will have to explain all the head gear and saddle things.

The woman in purple is the trainer, Shannon.

The weather was bad so they rode inside the barn.

Nice horse.

New Run-in Shed

We bought a new horse/cattle run-in from Carolina Carports. They came out to install it yesterday. Now the creatures in that pasture will have some shelter this winter.

Marianne and Anne came to visit from South Carolina.

The carport guys did a good job. Their plans were wrong but they got it right with a little supervision from me.

After the carport guys left I took Anne up to Halsey’s to pick up her lamb. They are up in the mountains and the rain had turned to snow going  up the pass. This was when we got out of the car at Halsey’s.

In front of Halsey’s Meats.

Snowing on Miller’s Ridge

The snow stuck to the grass and objects but not on the roads.

The finished cattleport. The plans that the installers came with said to put a half wall on the ends. They had indicated half way down horizontally. On one of my inspections I saw the error and explained that we wanted half wall vertically. They fixed it.

They found it and started using it.

Bahloo in Kentucky

Lisa went over yesterday to visit Bahloo. Heather took a bunch of pictures, these are some of Lisa’s

Got one!

Lenny finally got a mouse. We’re so proud! Not bad for a 13+ year old cat with one front tooth.

He caught it in the mud room and ran all the way back to the office. He was trying to keep the girls away from it. He hissed at me when I picked him up.

I had to take him outside so Lisa could see. He was very proud of himself.

Big Charlie

Heather was over today and took some pictures.

Charlie is getting pretty big. Larry is holding his own but he isn’t a beef breed like Charlie.

I was mowing the bottom pasture.

Old Sheep Pasture

We have been working on the creek crossing of the fence to the old sheep pasture. The floods knocked down the old fence as fast as we could get it put back up. Being the extraordinary engineer that he is, Bill suggested the design that we ended up using. We thought for a while on how to cross the bridge and settled on the gates. They hang in front of the posts so they can rest on the concrete curb of the bridge. This relieves the torque on the posts so we didn’t need to use a support structure. When the flood comes we can open the gates and let the water pass through. It doesn’t usually go higher than the curb anyway.

The gates have wire mesh to keep small animals like dogs out. There is a four foot sheep corral panel over the culvert hole.

Lisa went to the Tarter Gate Company scratch and dent yard in Liberty, KY to pick up the gates. It is a long drive but we got them for $35 a piece. They are over $150 each at retail stores. We can live with the dents.

We used welded cattle panels so we wouldn’t need to stretch wire.

The sheep are already eating the fresh weeds.

They still came over to see me on the four wheeler.

The new lambs are doing well.

Sheep Run

The sheep have been conditioned to associate the four wheeler with feeding time. They did get fed earlier, not so much that they need more than they are grazing but we had to get some equipment out of the horse port and they get in the way. 

That’s Ivy out in front. She is the pasture boss. Well, Ivy is the sheep boss, Dolly is the real pasture boss. The running llama is Speedy.

Lulu with her head jammed through the new fence. She’s rubbed a spot of wool off of her neck. You can easily see how much nicer and greener the grass is on this side of the fence.

The lambs are doing well.

Duane and Randy got banded and their second set of shots today.

We did some fence work today, no big surprise there. We are fencing off the bridge, the creek downstream will be part of the old sheep pasture. When we get done we can open it up to them again.

 

It comes out from the fence line, crosses the bridge and then goes back. We are using gates across the bridge that we can open during the floods. There will be a panel across the culvert that we can raise.