Earlier this year we put plant protectors around a bunch of our orchard shrubs and pasture trees. This was in order to facilitate letting the sheep and cows pulse through the orchard to mow the grass down for us, without letting them browse all the leaves off the figs, mulberries and currants (I’m looking at you especially, sheeps).
These protectors are a single length of left over woven wire fence, attached at one point to a t-post. This works well enough for the sheep, but not for the cows. Angus and Fergus thought these protectors made great scratching posts. Iris does too. This means that they shove their great, brawny sides against them and shove them off center so that they push right over top of the plants they are supposed to be protecting.
Before we let Iris and the sheep into the orchard, Seppi and Daddy spent part of Halloween morning reinforcing the plant protectors in the orchard.
We also had to get the ducks out of the way.
We put them in the garden for now. We don’t want to keep them there long term, but pulsing them through for a few days will give them a chance to munch slugs and wire worms.
They are a silly kind of creature, easily startled and spooked, very noisy, but they lay yummy eggs. From the eight hens we are getting 2-3 eggs per day now, as we move into the winter months.
Then we changed out the nasty duck water for some clean water for the sheeps and cow, and reinforced the plant protectors on this end of the orchard.
All ready!
Little Farm in the Big City 