More outside work, weather may turn soon

Three rocks closet to creek moved to the backside of the fence.

I went out and fixed the sheep leaks today.  Annmarie told me that the rocks needed to be moved by the creek so when the sheep pushed on the fence the rocks would stop it from moving.  I had put the rocks on the inside so I could lift the fence easily for the spring runoff.  The sheep are more of a problem than the spring runoff so I used a six foot steel cheater bar and still had trouble moving one of the rocks, but it eventually rolled into it's new spot. 

Beams are all that is left, sawzall has done its job.

As you can see the outside wall will need some work to make it stay  in place.

The winter horse shelter is the next big issue.  We are not sure where to put it and if we put it in the orchard then the hay will be a long ways off in the barn.  The original plan was to just let the horses roam in the barn lot and shelter next to the sheep.  Unfortunately, for that plan to work I would have needed to finish the fencing in the barn lot.   Still working on that...  But I liked the plan for the sheep/horse enclosure.  I was picking up scrap wood in the barn lot today and started to really study the broken down part of the lean to and decided that without too much effort and a few supplies I could re-purpose the unusable part into a covering for the horses.  So I started tearing into the floor and throwing the pieces out the door.  I even had time to string out some extension cords and cut into the floor beams.  The nice part is I only need to move two beam supports.  Two of the supports stick out two feet out of line with the other five beams.  Who knows why?  Those two will have to be shored up before I can cut those beams.  I wasn't able to salvage most of the floor.  It was broken, cracked and rotten.  I did manage to save five 4x6 inch beams about 10 feet long.  I am going to use them for the overhead walkway supports in the main barn.  I was pretty happy with that salvage. 

The foreground pile is going to be burnt this weekend. 

I will finish the outer wall and inner low wall from these scraps.

I spent some time fixing the sheep area before I dug into the horse area.  I had to move the metal panel further in to the sheep area to give the horses some more room.  I ended up using pallets to block the holes the sheep were crawling through.  On a side note most pallets are made out of hardwood and hardwood gets harder with age.  I broke four screws and bent three nails trying to connect two panels.  I finally just chained them together!  I didn't want to go get a drill and predrill a hole.   I drug down another feeder to place on the outside wall.  This gives us more space to feed and creates another barrier so the sheep cannot escape.  I had to make the old door by the hay storage room work, it needed some WD-40 and to cut off the bottom of the door opening so it would not pinch.  I also had to block the barn lot side with more pallets.  That wall is not in very good condition.  This new setup is pretty secure.  




We sold our first lamb on Monday for $100.  He weighed 90# live weight.  I have one more to sell at this price and then I have to do some more research.  It looks like the price has gone up rapidly in the last six months.  I am going to do more snooping around.  No drastic increases, but I may have to raise it some. The sheep should start having babies again next month or December.

Sheep and chickens browsing the ram pasture.