Beams, Berms and Boards

 

This is the story of our lives! We have two corgis who are not content with 5.8 acres. It's boring. They chase the squirrels away, and then they have nothing to chase. Well, accept for the crows. They love chasing the crows, who dutifully fly a bit, tease the girls, who chase them again, and then the crows light in a tree just on the other side of our fence! The tortoise (more than one?) is no challenge. 

We have several burrow entrances on our property. Some appear to be abandoned, but others show signs of activity. We were witness to a tortoise doing his/her spring cleaning a few weeks ago. There was dirt flying out of the hole! 

The torti (yeah, the plural is supposed to be tortoises, but I like this more creative form!) also are not content with our acreage, and burrow under our fence. Here's one escape hatch. with my creative means of keeping the dogs in the yard. I stuck sticks in the sand to create a fence....since we have begun to put boards along the bottom of the fence where escape is possible, I propped a board up against it as well. At some point the Mister and I will install the board properly. 

Kaitlyn has perfected the sidestroke to get under the fence. She plops down on her shoulder and uses her hind legs, helped by swimming motion of the front, to sidle under the fence. When I come across a possible point of egress when I am walking the fence line (I've started doing this each day) I stuff prickly shrub cuttings into the gap. 

The original owners of our hacienda had a dressage arena of sand, outlined by long timbers, like railroad ties. Originally the Mister thought he could use the tractor to move the timbers over to the fence line and push them against the gap under the fence. Unfortunately many of the timbers are rotted out underneath and crumble as he tries to move them. However, he has placed a few here and there. 

As a temporary measure the Mister has also built up mounds of dirt (sand) at the base of the fence. Both the dogs and the torti can dig through these, however, given enough time. 

But it at least slows the dogs down a bit!

I do have tags on each dog that state:

KAITLYN

I am microchipped.

I am lost.

Call my Dad:

###-###-####

We did get a call from just outside our fence one day. A nice young man 'collared' Kaitlyn (the most likely suspect to escape) and called to tell us he was outside our gate with our dog. 

Another time our backdoor neighbor stopped me to tell me the girls had come to visit her while she was having an outdoor ladies yoga class. Unbelievably our girls would not approach the ladies for some loving. I guess they had the 'stranger danger' class in puppy school! 

It's been an adventure, and will be an ongoing challenge to keep the ladies happy. 

Fennel and the Fence

This area of California has wild fennel. I love walking by clumps that grow along the trails. The sweet scent permeates the air. But beyond that, the plant is a pest. It is an invasive species, originally from the Mediterranean area, and readily takes over areas where soil has been disturbed. It is difficult to eradicate.

The yard of our new home had been neglected, and fennel was growing wherever seeds could find purchase in the dirt. Even in the middle of the flagstones. It has a long trap root, so pulling it out is not an option. (It appears to have a different root structure than the fennel bulbs we purchase to season yummy dishes.)

Fennel growing between flagstones in our back yard.

In addition to the yard being neglected, the fence between our yard and the neighbor below us was also in neglect. Several boards had pulled loose, leaving cockeyed peep holes. 

Peep holes through which we could see some of the aggravating fennel growing on the other side of the fence. 

A clump of fennel on the other side of the fence. 

 Fennel that is basically inaccessible from below... unless you have a very tall ladder!

Looking through the fence down into the neighbors yard.

So, taking advantage of one of the holes, I managed to cut down three large clumps of fennel. And, we repaired the leaning boards along the expanse of the fence.

Alas, the fennel will grow back again. But, the fence looks great better now. They say good fences make good neighbors... we'll see!

Thinking Outside the Box

Gosh darn it…

Oops!

Not to worry….

If I cock my head this way…

and hold my tongue just so…

I'm outta here!

I just wish I could be outta there!

Have a Busy and Productive Day

One of my favorite elementary school principals used to end each morning's announcement telling students and teachers alike, to have a busy and productive day. Well, yesterday, Dreaming lived up to that ideal! She was going from dawn 'til dusk!
It was sunny. There were only a few puffy clouds in the sky. It warmed up during the day to 80 degrees.... but the weather predictions were saying we'd get down to 28 last night (that ol' weatherman was pretty accurate... our thermometer said we got down to 29). I wanted to get all of the outside projects taken care of before the weather changed and before we left on our trip. So, Dreaming was as busy as a one-armed barber with hives yesterday. Lucky for her, Mr. Dreamy had to get up at 5:00 AM, so she got a head start on the day, too!
The deer (more on them in another post) have been rubbing on our new, young trees, so every tree now has a cage of wire around it. Each tree also received a deep drink of water.

Mama Boots now has a ramp going up to her escape hatch in the barn, so the bales of hay that used to be her launch platform can be used to feed the black horses (plus one) who will be coming back to visit while we are away.

Braided wire fencing has been put around a scrap pile in the paddock and around the septic tank in the front pasture. A few panels were moved to fence off the manure spreader and drag harrow in the back yard. Now the horses will have a few more places they can graze with less chance of getting into something that might hurt them. Wire fencing was put back up in the front yard so the horses can have access to the approximate one acre of grass out there... but won't be able to get to our cars or gardens.

I walked the perimeter of the pasture fence and repaired one place where the deer had pulled the top wire down, but the wire going to the ground is still making a snapping sound - so maybe I need to do a bit more investigation.

I drained and detached all of our hoses from their spigots. The hoses have been coiled. Do you coil your hoses up after each use? I used to, but this summer it seems like I was watering something every day. It hardly seemed worth it to take time to coil up the hose when I would be using it again in so few hours.

I cut, or pulled up, our tomato plants and brought them in to hang in the garage. I've never tried ripening tomatoes this way, but was told that the green tomatoes will continue to ripen on the vine. (During this time I also had an email conversation with Gail, At the Farm. She suggested digging up the tomatoes and bringing them inside. We tried. They were so top heavy they kept falling out of the pot. I gave up in frustration... perhaps with a little exhaustion thrown in to temper my mood!)

The tomatoes were hopelessly entwined around each other and the tomato cages. I finally just yanked the plants up, cage and all. The cages actually made handy tomato plant hangars when placed over the top of the dolly!

I also collected green tomatoes in a box to let them ripen. Nope... I won't do green tomato relish - that's not my thing... I don't think! I pulled most of the carrots, turnips and beets and brought them in as well. I'm letting some of the root veges remain in the garden for a while longer.

As I was finishing up in the garden the front began to move in. The temperature began to drop and just as I walked into the house, the front hit us with wind gusts up to 35 mph! Perfect timing! The perfect end to a dreamy day!

Whew! It was quite a day! Dreaming visited dreamland pretty early last night! And, now, another day has begun.

I hope you have a busy and productive day!

Get down on your knees and....

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Eat!  

I just can't figure how my horses can 

stretch their fat, little necks sooooo far!

No need to trim along their fence line!

Hubby told me that he misses 'the boys'.
I asked if he missed watching their antics in the paddock.
That wasn't it.
He misses their efforts to keep our yard mowed!

Fence Follies #2

I recently read an article about riding that suggested you always ride with a purpose. The horse can sense that purpose and will have a 'going to work' attitude. So, after some foundational exercises in the round pen with Doc I decided to go 'ride the fence line'. I explained to Doc, who was concerned that Pippin was left behind, that we had a very important job to do. We had to check the pasture fence for breaks. This is a job that real ranch horses get to do.

They say attitude is everything and that you really can control things with 'mind over matter'. But geesh... I didn't expect that to work with fences. Wouldn't you know, within 400 feet of the barn, down a steep hill and out of sight of the house, we came across a broken strand of the fence separating the boys from the neighbor's horses.  Not only was the top wire down and pulled away from the fence for at least 800 feet,

but a fence post was broken as well! 

Doc and I finished our task. A job well-done for we had, indeed, discovered problems with our fence. My plans for the day changed, just like that! Hubby's plans for the day changed, too!

Pippin felt a bit left out. He didn't get to do an important job like riding the fence line. So, he found other ways to help out:

You might want to hit the staple instead of your fingers...

 What do fence pliers look like?

That's looking really good. Glad I could help you!

They'll Make a Liar Out of You - Every Time!

Just yesterday I had a conversation with a friend about horses that went something like this:

Friend: We have four strands of wire, except along the back of our property where we only have two. But, the horses respect the fence and I've never had any problem with them going through it.

Me: My guys respect a fence, too. We have one strand of electric along the top of 4 strands, but we have separated our large pasture into 3 smaller pastures using 2 wire braids.

Friend: And they respect that?

Me: You bet! We haven't even had the charger turned on since before May and we've had no problems at all.

So today I look out and what do I see? Doc, happily munching grass in the wrong pasture. When I went to investigate I found that he had walked through the top wire braid, pulling the insulator's nail out of the post and then he stepped nicely over the lower strand to get to grass that he thought was better. You know...the grass is always greener yada, yada, yada. So I shooed him back over the wire. I trotted into the barn to get the screw-in insulators that we had just purchased, not an hour before I discovered my wayward horse! By the time I got back out to the pasture, Doc was once again in the wrong pasture. I shooed him back over and fixed the top wire using the new insulator.

Scene of the Escape

My dear, sweet husband brought down the weed trimmer and cut the grass that would probably have shorted the fence out. While he was working, Doc continued to nibble on the good stuff...on the wrong side of the fence. Oooooh, you wascally wittle horse. Be vewy, vewy careful! 

The power is plugged in and voltage is checked. The fence is HOT!

At least my wascally wittle horse seemed to sense that the fence was on. He stayed clear of the fence for the rest of the afternoon. I hate to see them get zapped.