Fence held

Well, I must be improving on my fence building skills, the sheep were still in the Barn lot this morning.  They stayed there all day.  So no holes so far, they are pretty persistent and I saw two this morning sticking their heads through the woven fence to get to the grass on the other side.  Forget that they were standing in grass 18 inches high, the stuff on the other side of the fence just tastes better!  Here are our sheep in the Barn lot hanging out today.

Yes, there is a creek running through the bottom 1/3 of the picture.  That is the "Front Creek" it is fed from a spring that comes up about 100 yards from here.  It runs year round and is around 40 degrees F all year long also.  It never freezes in the winter.  Need I say, that one of the reasons for getting the sheep was for them to keep the grass short.  Since they feel that the short scrub grass on the hill is more healthful for them, I have had to step up the fence construction.  One down, five to go!! (actually, I think that is an infinite number since fence repair is an ongoing thing)

I also fixed the SE fence yesterday in the Ram pasture.  Added a ton of stays, now I still have to add woven fence to the entire Eastern fence line, a gate and a bunch of stays.  This of course needs to be done yesterday.  The grass is starting to get very tall and needs to be cut or eaten.

This is the Ram pasture, Annmarie's grandparents used to keep the ram sheep in this pasture.  It was smaller then, I have moved the far fence back and moved the fence line up onto the hillside.  If you look closely, at the back fence you will see stays or fence post every five feet.  That is with sheep wire on the bottom half also.  I need to get the sheep in here before the cheat grass dries out or it is gonna be a bugger to walk through.  The colored spots in the foreground are my chickens free ranging.  The grass is so tall that they just disappear.  One of the problems with tall grass like this is ticks.  They climb up on it and attach to everything. We have had to start treating the dogs with tick repellent already this year.  The chickens being unlocked again should help with the tick problem.  The baby chicks are locked up safe in their metal cage enclosure now.  The gully on the upper left corner of the picture is the "Back Creek" (how do you like those names?)  Our house sits between the Front Creek and the Back Creek and to our knowledge has never been flooded. The front and back bridges have floated away, but no damage to the house.

Here is the rug I sprayed down and hung out to dry.  Obviously, the rug is drying.  No cats on it yesterday when it was soaking wet.  Now  you can see one lounging on the right end.  I shooed them off all day long today.  The rug needed another day to dry out, but the weather was turning bad, so Annmarie and I went out and took it down.  We hung it in a "U" shape in the trailer, not 15 minutes later it was raining.  We just pile the rugs on the floor in our medieval pavilion.  It makes it way more cozy and comfortable with the rugs down.