Sheep sorted, edible and nonedible.

Rob hard at work.

I got some work done on the farm today despite still having a broken tractor.  The welders have not given it a try yet.  I don't expect miracles or a thing of beauty, but it is going to be very expensive to fix the part with a new one!  A repair that holds would be fantastic.  Rob came out to see me and spend the day on the farm.  We needed to work the sheep but first thing the horses greeted us.  Rob didn't seem that comfortable around them.  We tried to tell who was who and who belonged to whom in the sheep herd with them behind the barn.  It was not possible.  We simply could not get close enough.
 So everyone got chased into the barn and we started trying to read ear tags on who belonged to whom.  Annmarie wanted the ram separated out.  We are trying to get the ewes back in estrus at the same time.  This having babies over a 2-3 month period is getting old especially in the summer where we don't pay as close of attention to them.  We pushed the sheep to the end of the barn and tried to use the chute system.  The sheep did not want to run down the chute!  2.5 hours later we had all the babies tagged, banded and two herds of sheep sorted and settled in their new homes.  All the boys and the ram went in with the alpacas..  The ram was tearing around the place with multiple laps before we could get him to join the meat wagon.  We now have an edible herd and nonedible herd.  I will get Annmarie to update the spreadsheet so we can get accurate ages on the edible group. 
Rob and I worked on the new drainage ditch for the old lean-to rain runoff ditch.  There is a rock ledge just this side of the barn and we had to finish breaking up a three foot solid rock section.  It took about an hour and the breaker bar was not as helpful as the pick axe.  Just ask Rob who got schooled on the pick axe use.  I put in a call to Annmarie to see if she wanted the barn door fixed first or the large hole in the fence by the back creek.  The sheep broke an old original post.  She decided on the fence first but it was a very long pause.  We dug a new hole after ripping the old fence down and then put the old fence.  It looks very good and the sheep cannot get through it after I add three more clips over the water.  I am hoping to get a new gate installed over there tomorrow.  That would be very nice. 

Repaired fence with new post.  Gate next.

Edible herd with our ram leading the pack.