Digging holes in September...

Fence almost moved

I have actually been doing stuff on the farm.  Mostly fence building, since it seems to be the same thing daily I have not been making blog entries.   It seemed redundant.  The story is not actually changing as I need about 30 days of fencing still (actual days worked).  On the plus side I actually have some pictures because the fencing has progressed to the point that you can actually see some physical changes (that whole planning and marking and measuring phase is boring).  I have been to the parts dealer three times looking for a shear bolt for my post hole auger.  They keep ordering the wrong part.  I was given a 1/4 inch bolt 3 inches long after the new guy found the right part.  He ordered me five and they are coming.  I came home to replace the bolt and realized that it may not have been all their fault.  I kept asking for the shear bolt on the auger.  The shear bolt is actually on the drive shaft where it connects to the gear box that drives the auger. Not really the same thing.  Gave me some respect for the new parts guy.  He kept digging until he found it.  It helped that he could tell what parts had been ordered and that they were wrong.  I just about have the ram pasture fence moved.  In the above picture you can see the light brown line that extends to the back left corner of the picture, that is the old fence line.  The new fence line allows access to the front creek so the animals can get to water 365 days of the year whether or not the back creek is running.  I even managed to pull up the old post that used to hold the knob and tube copper wire running to the barn.  It did not want to come out of the ground.  Annmarie came home and I had the tractor up on two wheels trying to bounce the post out of the ground.  It took a few tries to finally get it out. 

Front creek barn lot

I spent some time digging out the front creek by hand yesterday.  This is a very painful task.  The mud is heavy wet and stinky.  I am trying to get the creek to just a little channel, not a five foot wide mud hole.  If the sides will just dry up I will have it.  I was digging and dragging from the bank when I noticed Zeke playing with something in the mud, it was a crawdad!  It was almost 3 inches long and surprised me.  I did not think anything other than insects lived in the creek.  My bridge is holding up well.  I am pretty happy with it, in hindsight I should have made it wide enough to drive the tractor over.  Oh well. 

The front barn lot fencing is more painful.  I cannot drive a few metal posts and the tractor and I were unable to drill five holes in the ground.  The auger just sits on top of the ground and won't advance.  Yesterday I tried chipping 1/2 inch of dirt away and trying the auger again.  I managed to get one more hole dug but broke the shear bolt again.  Rocks suck.  Better than me digging it by hand.  I called uncle and set up a sprinkler on the area.  I plan on keeping the water going for 2-3 days nonstop.  Hopefully, this will soften the ground enough for me to get some holes dug.  I keep decreasing the number of wooden posts that need to go into the ground.  All this work has convinced me that I need three less wooden posts and will just use metal posts instead. 

Next week Jason is coming over so we can do a little more barn work.  We need to hang the two slider doors.  This is the last big item beside finishing the siding.  I do need to reside the old lamb shed so the horses quit eating the cows hay.  We have moved the horses out so they cannot get at it, but a completed building would be nice. 

Maybe water will help?