Burn Pile

We went to Halsey’s Meats to pick up “13”. She was the old ewe who we didn’t think would survive the winter. As it turns out we were correct. She’s in the freezer now and we are going to have mutton steaks for dinner tonight.

The processing facility.

:::WARNING!:::This picture contains graphic content. The large size picture is NOT pixilated. The deer doesn't appear to have been field dressed. Can you tell what type of creature is on the rack?

  We lit the burn pile. It was good weather for burning. Cold and a steady breeze. Jersey Larry is in the middle of everything. We can’t wait until he’s 1000 pounds!

 

We were aiming to get the two posts in for the bottom stretcher.

 

Pre-smoked beef.

 

Lisa brought down the calf toy for Barbara to sit on.

Big Larry was interested in the fire too.

Everybody getting warmed up by the fire.

We ran out of daylight and didn’t get the post holes finished.

Lisa went up and fed the calves while I stayed and watched the fire.

Fence Week

We got a good section of fence wire installed today.

The ground was still too dry for the auger without a little added moisture.

Jersey Larry is getting nosy. He wants to be in the middle of everything.

Jersey Larry was back, again.

Charley Larry isn’t as tame but he’s getting there. He came down to see what was happening.

With the barbed wire down the calves can use the whole ten acres. We had left the drive gate open and forgot about the garage doors being open. Jersey Larry showed up promptly and stuck his head in a bag of cracked corn.

Charley Larry was out in the car area so he followed along when Lisa relocated Jersey Larry.

I made a contraption to unwind the field wire with the tractor. It’s a 100 meter roll and weighs a lot. It hangs from the boom pole and worked pretty well for unrolling. We had hoped that we could use the contraption for stretching too.

It didn’t stretch the wire right so we used a come-a-long and fence stretcher hooked to the truck.

Barb Wire

We were getting the fence line ready for field wire today. We had to remove the four strands of barbed wire first. Next we’ll set some stretcher posts.

I haven’t introduced Charley Larry. My apologies for the oversight. He is a Charlois cross beef. He was supposed to have been a steer when we got him but when we got home with him we discovered he still had all his bull parts. We took care of things and now he is a steer.

Jersey Larry didn’t understand why the white bucket didn’t have food in it. White buckets always have food in them. Lisa was carrying her fencing tools in this one. Sorry, Larry.

I had already removed all the t-post wire connectors. Lisa was going in front of me removing all the wood post wire staples. If you look closely at the bottom you can see Big Larry. He seemed to think the white bucket should have food in it too.

The stack of wire after removal. It is quite heavy. I took it over and dropped it off for Nelson.

The view of our property from Nelson’s tractor shed.

Ivy on the right. The ewe lamb is on the left and the wether lambs in the middle. They are growing nicely. Tillie and Bess are good moms.

Livestock

The first thing most people ask when they hear we have a llama is “does he spit?” The answer is, yes, but he has never spit on us. He does spit at Larry all the time.

Larry often gets a little too friendly with Louie. Usually it is around feeding time or when we come up to the fence to deliver water. Louie isn’t feeling the love.

His ears perked back up after the spitting episode. He likes me.

When the sheep realized I was just bringing down water they went back to the hay. They like hay.

Larry is getting ready. We’re hoping he is around 900 lbs. His date with destiny is on December 10.

He gets grubby rolling around in the hay.

Louie in full koosh.

The Door

 

It has been down in the 20’s and 30’s the last few nights so we got to work on the hen house door. It has a smaller door for chicken access.

We got the second window installed.

Lisa painted the door.

The chickens finally figured out the small door.