Catching up on fencing.

Second reason to paint/stain fence, water protection.

Herbicides are my friend.

Yesterday was a day to catch up on items around the farm.  I do still need to move hay but we had so much rain the night before that I need to let the hay dry out a little more before sticking it into the barn.  I happened to glance over at the small part of our front fence that is painted and noticed the amazing job of rain repellent the Sherwin Williams stain we used was doing.  This is definitely another reason to paint the fence.  I love herbicides!  They make an intolerable job of weed control doable for one person.  As you can see my weeds are wilting and dying, this is a good thing. 

Creek crossing after bull tore out all the paneling and made a cow highway. 

My nephew cleaned out the other hay room. He removed all the old boards and restacked the straw near the door.  We spent the afternoon fixing fences. Annmarie wanted to turn the boy sheep (edible herd) onto the back hill side. We discussed the benefit of animal weed depridation and I was all for the assist.  But first we had to repair the creek crossing the bull ripped up. I have a wire spanning the creek way up in the air and hang panels down that I lift in the late winter before the spring runoff. He was wading into the stream and lifting the panels with his horns and crawling under them. 

To thwart this behavior we drove a steel rod four feet into the bank on each side parallel to the ground and attached a removable steel cable. Now I can clip the bottom of the panels to the cable to prevent lifting and remove the cable before spring. Pure genius!  We we'd to re stretch a short chunk of fence near the crossing as one of the cows had torn it up. On the way out of the field we fixed the little human gate. Both hinges were upright so the bull would lift it off and escape. We re drilled and turned the upper hinge. We also fixed a stretch of fence by the apple tree. 

We then went to the far upper corner of the property and added woven wire to two stretched gates so the sheep could not get through. I need a sixteen and 18 foot gate to replace those. We re stretched a third gate and went to the upper pasture and clipped in panels in the creek bed so the ram could not sneak through and get to the ewes.  It fixed all the big outstanding issues we have with the fence currently. I am seriously considering a fence across the narrow part of the driveway. It would stay open most of the time. It would help immensely when moving animals. We will move the boys tomorrow.  

New and improved cow resistant crossing.