They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.
Last Saturday, after the bull calves casually walked through our (somewhat) electrified netting for no apparent reason, Mommy and Daddy went on a date. I record that here because we made a resolution at the beginning of the year that we were going to do one date per month, and so far so good! Of… Continue reading It never goes smoothly…
A week ago I did a bit of "fancy" fencing to get a gap closed. However, despite how fancy the chiseled notches looked (not that fancy), at the end of the day it was only tied in place with one bail twine and one wire tie. So yesterday we ended up having to go to… Continue reading Fancy Fencing, Part 2
The ultimate goal of having cows is for them to eat our grass and turn it into meat and milk. Accordingly, we want to get our bulls out on pasture as quickly as possible to take advantage of the Spring flush. (I say "bulls" and not "steers" because, despite the fact that they have been… Continue reading Bulls on Pasture
It has been a while since any update. There is a good reason for this. Grandma Ann is visiting and we have been spending time vacationing with her. We drove down to the Oregon coast for a few days, chiefly to watch the kids playing on the beach, to judge from the pictures we brought… Continue reading Fancy Fencing
Busy day on the farm yesterday. We decided on Sunday we need to re-arrange the barnyard better to be able to sort out livestock and direct them where we want them, and to be able to drive a truck into the laneway, or even just walk down the laneway without having to walk through gates… Continue reading The Measure of a (Little) Man
Quick update from last week, on Thursday afternoon after work we split forces. Mommy took the two older girls and got all of the grocery shopping done for the week. Daddy took the two younger ones and finished the last stretch of pasture fencing. It was cold, so Seppi borrowed my flannel. Winnie didn’t mind,… Continue reading The final stretch
The final corner of the field is the southeast fence. OUr friend Nicholas came over yesterday and helped stretch this, and thanks to his help we were able to make some great progress. Unfortunately, we had some setbacks and some upset tummies, so we didn't get it quite finished. As always, the first step was… Continue reading Stretching the southeast fence
Is more fun with family. At 5 AM I was out in the field tying down this inside corner. It was a tough job, getting all the thirteen longitudinal wires pulled back against the wood post. There was just too much tension, not all of them got pulled back. I will probably revisit this in… Continue reading Stretching the fence…
Thursday was the first day we tried to stretch the fence in the pasture. Got off to a good start, but ended up not going according to plan. The problem was that I actually have no idea how to stretch a woven wire fence, and had no idea how much stretch it would have. So… Continue reading Best laid plans
There are two things you must have in place before you can intensively rotate animals on pasture: Water Control With the plumbing finished, the yard hydrants connected and operating, and the trench filled in, the pasture set up moves into what we hope will be the final stage before we can put animals onto it:… Continue reading Building Fence Anchors.
Little Farm in the Big City 