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On the last day of the dome...we had a most curious sunrise. A blazing red sky to the east and to the west we had a morning rainbow! See that little bright spot in the sky? It grew fainter the further up into the clouds it went, but it was there!

This is the second time I've seen something like this, almost in the same spot. Perhaps it is a combination of moisture and light at just the right moment?

Friday evening brought nice temperatures finally. I don't know how those folks in other areas deal with nonstop heat, but I know I don't do well with it.

To celebrate the cooler weather, Siera and I rode out on the neighbor's cropland and enjoyed the evening views. She loves wide open flat spaces and gaits out in a super smooth ride. A gaited animal ride is like no other. She was actually very calm and very quiet unlike the ride where we met up with the killer baby stroller and mule eating children on dangerous bicycles.

In the zinnia garden, the Great Spangled Fritillary was busy. 

Not to mention the Swallow Tails!

The morning glories are indeed glorious right now, they are really going gung ho. I haven't watered them in a long time but they seem to be doing fine. They are not close to the house but out towards the pastures.

I may have to put them nearer the house next year so I don't have to walk so far to enjoy them.

After recovering from the heat dome, the flowers seem to be doing fine. The nasturtiums are trying to take over the porch! I'll have plenty of seeds for next year as they are producing a lot of them! Nasturtiums send out vines that look for more space.

Sunday was an all day work day. The summer meadow needs to recover so I've fenced it off.
In the shot below you can see where the hot wire was and the greening of the area that has not been grazed for 3 weeks.

To encourage growth for overwinter and recovery, I'm not letting the critters into the meadow until next summer.

However, in that line of trees is a nice section of forest with a LOT of food.

To the left of this photo is another wooded pasture that has been grazed down but if I make a gate for the mules to go into the forest from that side, I can keep them off the meadow!

In the shot above, the 4 wheeler is in the meadow and I am standing in the older worn out pasture. I made an opening to the forest with a single hot wire to keep them out of the meadow. Now, to get them to use it!

Pounding t-posts was one of the hardest things I did! The ground is so dry and hard that it took a long time and a huge effort to do it. 

Hubby built a post pounder that weighs 20lbs and is a steel tube with a cap on it. We don't use the ones sold in stores.

I think I got a good arm workout!

The good part about the 'gate' and trail into the woods, is that it uses a trail they already are accustomed too.

Well, here it is almost the end of August! Are you ready for September?

That Hurt!

In December we had a heavy wet snowfall that dropped a huge section of a Boxelder across part of the summer pasture electric fence. 

I have my woodland pastures fenced off in rotating sections so I needed to get most of the wood off the fence or at least cut so I could fence around it.

First, I put up a temporary hot wire to keep my critters from wandering down into the area I haven't pulled burdock from. It would drive my hubby crazy to see how I made the zig zag fence through the upper woods. He is a straight line fencing type of guy. Not me!

Crappy photo of a small portion of upper fencing. I had to go around some multiflora rose bushes I intend to cut down yet and some of last year's burdock.

The red line is my one line hot wire.
Thankfully, the mules are very cautious about the hot wire and will not go near it.

There is a perimeter fence way down in the woods, so if they did go through this, they'd still remain within our fenced land.

I also need to replace a lot of insulators way back in the woods. Over the winter, the deer are pretty hard on them. 
Once upon a time, our old pony mule would scoot under any hot wire fence and go where he wanted to. He also went to the line fence and jump the 4 strand barbed wire to graze on the neighbor's land. When he was satisfied, he'd jump back over to our side and join his buddies.

Here is an example of Opal who was our other champion jumping mule taking a short cut from our neighbor's land over our line fence. This was in 2007. She was State Champion Jumping Mule for mules under 14 hands in 2002.

She was an incredible animal.

Annnyyywaayyyy, back to my self induced painful wreck. I take full credit for it.

This large section of tree was down on the fence. So I took my machete and my reciprocating saw and got to work on clearing the small branches and piling them. 

I did a great job and eventually I was down to the large pieces.

I cut a V shape into the largest limb and thought I should leave it for another day. However it was just one piece. If I tugged on it this way and that, surely it would crack and break.

So I set to tugging. In the back of my head, I thought: If this lets go with all the pressure I have on it...

It didn't, so I gave it another go and really pulled backwards with my teeth gritted and a cuss word on my lips. I didn't want to walk away without the job done.

Crack!

And suddenly I realized that I was going backwards down a small incline. I guess I really figured it out when the world suddenly went upside down. I guess I tucked and rolled. 

After I landed, I didn't move. 

Hmmm. Since no one was looking I decided to assess the damages. The appendages moved without pain. So I considered how stupid my move was for a few moments. I stood up and picked up the offending limb and tossed it on the brush pile.

By the time I walked back to the house with my tools, my upper back ached and I was getting a very light headache. 

I learned a lesson. Next time, barter for some chainsaw work from one of the neighbors.

However...the fence is now free of branches!

Friday was a day of NO hand sawing and no hard labor. 

PS- I checked out okay.

Blue paint & a Saw

Adventures in fencing.

What is a perfect time to go out and see what needs to be done to make the woods above the creek usable as pasture?
A storm had destroyed most of the electric fencing down near the creek in 2007 and then again in 2012. In 2015, it was our intention to finally
clean up the barbed wire fenceline and replace sections of it for the Dexter Cattle.
2015 was the year that Throat Cancer put everything on hold.

Oh, we'd get to it 'next' year. 2016 saw us remodeling the house and I kept thinking about that pasture and how nice it would be to have the cattle or the equine in it.

2017. Rich had his stroke. Dreams of working on the pasture went to the back burner as we tended to downsizing the equine. Our dreams changed and we decided to concentrate on organizing and figuring out what came next.

Thank goodness things seemed to settle down in 2018. I started to think about those woods again.

This summer I even temporarily fenced in a small section of the woods just to see how well the mules would do clearing the underbrush.

Donkeys are much better and so are Dexter Cattle, but the donkeys had been sold and the Dexters were all sold in the fall.

The temperatures were hovering around the mid thirties and the winds promised to pick up later. I grabbed a can of blue spray paint and a saw. I was going to walk the line fence and mark the areas with paint that needed work.

I marked missing clips and X'd a few trees that could be hand sawed down. Big X's went on the large log that was laying across the barbed wire fence. I peered at it. I'd need a chain saw or an axe to clear the fence and fix it. The good news was that this was the only spot that needed barbed wire attention.
I could run a singe line on the inside of the fence that would prevent the mules from reaching through the fence.
I made it to the creek and sprayed some lines on a tree to mark where I wanted the new 'creek' gate to go.

I walked above the creek and noted that all my work last spring of clearing was still pretty good. I'd given it all up when it got too hot and nasty last summer.

I spritzed some saplings that needed to get chopped down and swiped at the berry briers that I'd have to come back and clear. I didn't want to use a killing brush spray but there were so many of them.

Again I wished I had at least a donkey or two left. They delighted in eating multiflora rose and briers.
Goats?
Hmm.

I kept walking and marking. I cut down a fair sized pile of brush and had to stop when I heard the winds overhead begin to howl.
Off across the north hillside I heard a tree crack and crash with a huge thump that shook the ground.

It was time to head back home.

I entered the house after dropping my dirty boots off on the porch. I closed the door softly as not to disturb Rich.

That pasture was doable.
Now I had a good winter project to work on.

And it sure wouldn't be sweaty and buggy.

I fell asleep on the couch for a short nap with Charlie and dreamed of spray painting blue X's on trees... and chopping down briers.

Let's go fencing!

We don't have the normal pastures, no nice flat land, no nice even terrain.  Steep hills, steep terrain and a lot of woods.

The downed trees were supposed to be moved, and piled but since hubby had to put these things off due to going for cancer treatment, I decided to go ahead and fence around and through the 'downed' stuff.

The mules need to get back in this section of the woods and do some cleaning. After a year's rest, many areas had grown back with lots of grass and good mule browsing.

At the upper end of the property Annie, Speedy [the calf], and Valerie watched me set up the connections for the new fence on the wooden post.

All that is left for me to do is run the Enduro-soft electric fence.  The breaking strength is 1800 lbs and has a life time of up to 25 years.
The fencing is pricey, but I've had trees fall on it and it didn't break the fence, but did stretch it.

The fence is like a soft rope and can be used as a permanent fence.

We use a combination on some of our fences. Here is a sample of what we use around the cattle's meadow.

Once I finish this project I have only one left.

We also use electric to keep our animals off from the line fence which is barbed wire.

It works great.

Since I have become the 'head' fencer this summer, I've enjoyed the work.

Soon we'll have the last of the mules on summer pasture.

SHHH, don't tell my husband that I actually have enjoyed this work. The only really difficult part was carrying everything to the woods and using the old method of 'post pounding' to set the posts.

Well...it can keep an old lady in shape!

And so it goes.

Today was re-qualification day with our firearms.

We have to shoot targets and get a passing score.  We also take a test on the State Laws regarding Lethal Force.

Today I was given 'most improved' on the Glock 'award'. And yes I will agree, I made a huge improvement over my scores for the past two years.  My first year was awesome, then ... well I slipped!

It clicked together and I did very well.  The shotgun is normally my best weapon.  I nearly flubbed it.  I didn't pull it tight enough into my shoulder when shooting [timed event] and got smacked hard by the recoil on my cheek bone.
I made it though.

Hubby was at his daughter's last night so I had some 'free' time. Yesterday.  I worked hard at fencing and adjusting things to make my chore life easier.

Hubby hasn't been able to mow yard yet...eeeeks!
I can't run his Country Clipper and am looking to get a self propelled mower.
In the mean time, I decided to put up temporary fence and get the mowing done organically.

This is Dyna, she was with Fred and Siera who did a fine job in mowing and fertilizing this portion of the yard.

They have another two sections to do and most of my knee high grass will be taken care of.

These mules know the routine.  When I come out at night I just wave to them and give them a kiss sound.
They follow me back into their paddock.  Such good mules!

This is the fence that the grand kids helped with when they visited.
I hope tomorrow to move the rest of 'the gals' out to the Meadow.

Here is Dennis proudly showing off where he helped fence.  He loved the details of electric fencing.

Here is my other helper I had for the day.  She found a morel mushroom!

Ariel is more oriented towards the animals.  She took Dixie out for more than one walk.  Dixie listened to her and they got along so well.

My hubby is in the middle of his treatments and things are going sort of rough for him.

I appreciate all of the help I got from my Grandkids and daughter Steph this week.

Lastly...a photo from Goose Island.
I had to take my Subaru in so they could install a remote starter.

I had some time to kill before Qualification and so I stopped at Goose Island.

Onward we go.
One
Day
At
A
Time.

Fencing and Stuff

Time to turn the Dexter Cattle out on spring pasture this morning.

Last night I worked until dark setting things up to make an easy transfer from one pasture to another.  Thank goodness for the ability to make gates in electric fences.

And I love our 'rope' electric fence it is very visible and the cattle really respect it.

This goes for the mules also.  Except Fred, he is always checking to see if a fence is working or not.
If there is a line out he will surely find it.  But he hasn't left our place in over 10 years so I feel we are doing well.

I hope to have 'the girls' turned out into the 'Merry Meadow' very soon.  The grass in nearly ready, perhaps another week should go by before they get out into their summer area.  I have some lines to replace.  One of the division lines for rotation is very old and probably not very good.

That is my goal of 'fixing' before going to work.

Working in the meadow right now is really quite relaxing.

I even fall in love with the scent of the Hawthorne Tree. This tree is not a favorite of some, but to me, I think it has a beautiful shape and the scent of its spring flowers are intoxicating.

And of course there are the wild apple trees that are scattered about in the Meadow.

I constantly try to get my husband to leave them alone or perhaps allow some new ones to grow.
The mules love to pick their own apples and the jelly I make from them is wonderful.

Most of all I love those short few days in which the blossoms flood the air with their scent.

After these repairs are done, I'll move on to the two wooded pastures that need re-fencing.
Hubby meant to do it last year, but we never got it finished.

A huge oak tree fell on part of the wooded lot we have near the creek.  I've looked at it and have figured out a way to fence through it at least for this summer.

I'm not handy with a chainsaw, but I can be creative in my fencing abilities.