Lots of catching up to do

Early Spring before everything died and it became evident that we have been over run
by cheat grass!

I have been busy and not keeping everyone abreast of the activity at our abode.  We put an add on Craigslist a month ago to get rid of our ram.  We had someone call yesterday and they came today and picked him up!  Not only that they wanted a ewe.  So we sold them the original Crazy ewe.  We had been talking about getting rid of her any way as she was teaching her babies to be just as crazy/scared as she was.  We sold #2 and #3 sheep for the year.  This is very nice.

I spent the day mowing weeds.  We rented a tractor with a mower on the back (last time as our tractor will be here in mid-August) for today.  I hit it early and started mowing at 7:00 am, didn't finish until 5:30 pm.  I did stop for lunch and I spotted the people when they came to buy Oreo so I helped load the sheep.  I had to pick up both sheep and put them in the horse trailer.  They were not going in on their own.  There is an old sheep ramp over by the loading pen, but it looks like it needs new boards and maybe some welding done on it before it could be used.  Eventually, I am sure that will be put on the list of need to do projects.  Not yet, I have other things first.  The mowing made me realize how much cleaning up is left to do.  It was amazing the amount of things I kept running over!  When I mowed the old ram pasture it was like mowing a park, no stumps, rocks, old fencing stuff, more rocks, equipment or trash laying hidden in the tall weeds.  I will start making each area just as clean as the ram pasture.  I am going to start picking up the rocks and making a new pile.  I want to use some on the back hillside for landscaping so I have a use for them.

Sarah and I went out and got the chicken yard sprinklers working and hooked up.  We have them on a little manual  90 minute timer you just turn and it shuts the water off.  I hooked up their auto outside waterer also.  Just in case they get locked in the yard.  Since my new Chicken Butler is not here yet.

Saturday I finished the orchard fence.  I still have one gate to install but all the fencing is done.  One more check mark for the Summer list.  I will get it all done.  We moved the sheep and horses to the orchard pasture.  They seem to be getting along except occasionally the horses will harass the new babies.  They chase them around the orchard.  Momma does not like this at all.  The horses get tired of it eventually and give up.

Horses in the upper portion of the orchard, basically rocks with a
little dirt over them.  Dry year round, this is a good thing
since the rest of the orchard is self watering. 

I have not made any new progress on organizing the tool shed (old house).  Too much time spent fencing.  I still need to fence in the barn lot and rip out the old head feed panels for the cows (the sheep can just jump through them to get out of the barn lot.).  Annmarie's father was feeding cows through the fence and I will need to take those out and repair that section.  I have not even started to repair the back half of the orchard fence.  I mowed next to the fence today and could see all the problems that need to be corrected.  I can get away with doing very little for now but by next year I am going to have to rework a large chunk of the existing fence.