Fall work

There seems to be more work left at the end of my day. I would like to have more day left at the end of my work! Be that as it may, this Fall has been a busy time. After building the fence for the new pasture for the goats and sheep, I set about planning a shelter for them as there is no natural shelter in that pasture.
I have seen buildings made out of shipping pallets and I had experimented with a small shelter for my bucks and rams, so I decided to build a shipping pallet shelter. For a few months now I have been collecting same size pallets at the co-op where I work. Finally I had 18 matched pallets and I went to work.

I also needed roof joists - so I decided to reclaim some lumber from a fallen down cattle shelter in my corral. The rafters of the cattle shelter would provide lumber long enough to make roof joists. So I went to work dismantling the rafters - which was quite hard

The rafters of the old cattle shelter

a small pile of lumber from a few rafters

I bolted the pallets together. Here are some goats enjoying the wind break on Tuesday evening before the wind storm

The shelter blocked, leveled, and with 2 joists up. 

I still need to finish the front beam, and put up the rest of the joists and then strap them and put old salvaged tin on for a roof. All in all it cost me about $37 in bolts, joist hangers, nails and screws. The shelter is 11x29 feet. It was fairly hard work as the pallets are heavy. I would load 5 in my truck, drive up to the pasture gate, drop them off and drag them into position, then go back for 5 more. The recycled joists had to be carried up the hill. It was a good workout! And fun to build. I hope to finish it this Fall but at least for now the sheep can use it as a windbreak

Storm clouds brewing. 

The goats on the east side of the shelter Tuesday night. The wind was picking up.

Remus the guard dog on the hill. He is 6 months old now. 

My next Fall project is to finish winterizing my well. The well is the winter water source for my animals. The water table is quite high where the well is, so the water is about 5 ft from the surface... which is not good. 8 feet would guarantee it doesn't freeze but at 5 feet last year there was significant ice in the well - and it wasnt a particularly cold winter. So I am building an insulated box with a tight fitting insulated lid to go over the well casing and hopefully provide enough protection to avoid my pump freezing up. More on that in the next post! 

Blown off course

Wednesday was one of THOSE days.
The wind started Tuesday night, gusting to 70 km/hour at times. Wednesday morning started out with having to put out hay for the sheep and goats, as they had finally grazed down the grass in their new paddock. I was quite impressed that they grazed it for a month but still wish I had more grass to avoid feeding hay.... anyways. The lambs were easy to move into the corral, roll out a bale in their pasture and put them back. We move them when we roll out hay because they will run up and swarm around the tractor - which makes it really hard to try put down a 1000lbs bale without squashing an animal, and then roll it out without driving over eager little critters that cannot wait for their breakfast. Then we moved the ewes and goats into the next pasture and rolled out 2 bales for them. The wind took the swathes of hay and blew it around, some of it ending up right against my fence, on top of the electric offset wire. That would need cleaning up later.
 Then I had to set up an alleyway to move the ewes and goats back to where we had rolled out their hay. Moving them was hard, uphill and with a 70 km/hour head wind.... The ewes went through the gate and to the hay, the goats on the other hand, ducked out under the temporary fence alleyway at the last possible minute and headed for the yard. Convincing them to come out of the bale stacks and trees... took me to phone a friend with a trained dog because my 2 dogs weren't impressing the goats one bit. So we put the goats in with the lambs as that pasture has access to shelter, and the goats are such babies when it comes to wind, rain, snow... anything but perfect sunny weather!

Finally having everything sorted, I stopped my truck to pick up a pail blowing away in the wind.... forgetting to park the nose of my truck into the wind. So my door just about got ripped off, and now I have to listen to an annoying wind whistle when I drive as the door frame got bent.... oh the joys of the windy prairie!

The afternoon things didn't go smooth either. We were preparing for a custom cattle take-out in the North pasture. I helped Larry set up portable fencing as alleyways much in the same way I do for my sheep and goats. Larry's pasture is cross-fenced with single strand electric wire. Once trained to electric fence, cattle consider it a serious barrier. We do not have gates, instead the wire is loose enough that we can slip a 'lifter' - a 8 ft tall plastic pipe - under the wire anywhere we want, and just let the cattle go under the wire. Which works great once they get trained to recognize the black pipe as a 'safe' place to come through the fence. As it happened though, this particular group of cows had not been through the lifter much this summer and we had trouble convincing them to go. Its amazing how a cow will stop right at the line of fence posts,  even though the wire is up high where they cannot see or touch it... yet they refuse to cross that line. Add a strong head wind that the cattle didn't really want to move into and well... it took us  5 hours to move under 3 fence lines - about one mile. By that time it was too dark to push them the rest of the way, so we left them for the night. Walking in a strong wind like that is very tiring!

Thursday morning the wind had gone down a notch to 45 km/h so we took the horses out at first light to get the cattle into the corrals for sorting and load out. That went pretty smooth but loading the trucks took up all of the morning. Thursday afternoon we had to move portable panels for corrals from the North pasture down to Larry's home farm, to set up for Friday morning take-out of custom cattle. It was a long day too. Friday morning we rode out on a lovely calm morning to round up some more cows for shipment. Larry had enough help once the truckers showed up that I left after lunch to go into Moose Jaw to go watch the reining Futurity and support my coach and team mates that were competing. It was a nice break and I hope to be showing there next year.

A busy Summer

Wow I'm not sure where summer went!

It was a busy one. We were fortunate to have some help from the HelpX website - Paul and Charlene, Nic, Sarah, Cecilia, Fred and Fabien.
These folks helped out with looking after the chickens and turkeys, collecting eggs, fencing, gardening, yardwork, housework.... Thank you each and every one. I hope you enjoyed your visit to Canada!

So what have we been doing?
Larry had 3 different groups of cows to manage - checking water, moving fences for rotational grazing, moving cattle....

I had a fence to build, animals to pick up at community pasture, the sheep and goats that stayed home needed checking and managing, my garden needed work, I helped Larry move cows, and then tried to keep the Balance of things and plan fun stuff in between - so I took my horse Macy to 2 horse shows, took my dog Spice to sheep camp, went fishing, went to Cypress Hills, went riding 1x a week with my coach...

So here are some random photos from the summer
You might remember this photo from my Grazing Rotations blog - this was what the grass looked like after an intensive graze on June 4:

 This is the same hill, on July 6:  

Me and Macy moving cows

Jewel eating apples - there's an advantage to having a long neck! :)

Remus, new guardian of the flock. Sitting behind the electric fence.

Fishing with friends

 Nic enjoying some time off 

The chickens enjoying a dust bath under the trees

The new chicken pasture. 

  

chickens moved

turkeys foraging 

 Whats left of a plant: only the top leaves the turkeys cant reach! 

Here's a video clip of the turkeys grazing Turkeys Grazing

My veggie garden with chicken coop in background

 Another picture of a thistle that the chickens and turkeys stripped

Shamrock trail ride

Nic with a fish

At sheep camp: thanks to Chelsey A Hinckley for these gorgeous photos

Take-out day at the Elbow community pasture: I was at the crowding tub, this is the alley leading away from the tub to the sort gate

The view on the other side of the crowding tub! It was a hot and dusty day! 

Animals sorted into producer pens

 Remember what the layers looked like when we got them? 

Before and after

 Nice moose spotted on the way back from Elbow pasture

Sunset over Lake Diefenbaker

Fall is in the air....

Land of the living Skies :)