Working outdoors..

Winds, snow, weather, and dead trees caused a few of the dead Ash trees to fall over on the fence in one of my summer paddocks. The location is ideal for hot summer days with lots of shade and breezes for the gals to languish in.

The hardwire fence was intact until this fall and winter, then the trees fell across it and I had to do something about it before letting the mules back in. 

And it was a mess of overgrown tree branches from the other side of the fence. Tree branches rosebushes, and vines. It seemed to be a good time to clean things up a bit.

Justin who lives just at the top of the hill cut all of the trees off the fence. Yesterday I spent the day putting the line fence back up and clipping it to the posts.

But first I used my reciprocal saw to cut back the tangled brush, tree limbs and multiflora rose. I went back with my little electric chain saw and took down the bigger limbs and saplings. I took out the broken insulators and replaced them with ones I already had and restrung the hot wire [electric fence].

Another job done. The mules probably wouldn't have even tried to cross the fence even if it weren't repaired. It has been there all of their lives and they don't look to go beyond it. They might if there was no feed in their small pasture.

But it felt like a great project for a cold day. The only thing I may do yet it weed whack some of the offensive weeds that are along the fence area. I used a shovel and dug over 20 burdock plants and several clumps of motherwort.
 

Part of our west yard is rough and steep. It never got repaired after the house was remodeled and I was going to hire someone to take care of it and grade out the bumps and huge divots that no mower can go through.

Two trees were taken down in this spot last year the excavator dug it up even worse. My thought was to hire him to come back and do a lawn make over. However with the current cuts to things by the government and the uncertain economy, I decided to wait and have an estimate done this fall.

I reverted to my 4 hooved mowers.

First, plant the posts. The soil has dried out again, this took a lot of effort.

Plan how to string the hotwire so that it works out in the other pasture....

String the fence....test the fence.

Open the little gate for access and watch the mowers work.

Mowing problem solved for a few months.

Supply 'bucket' for tight places....

Next job up. Some weed whacking and mowing the yard again....

I set my phone for one hour at a time for this work. Then I check in on the hubby. He also has the key fob to the car and can set off the alarm if he really needs me. Though yesterday he kept pressing it because he thought it was lunch time and I should come and make lunch.

Me...run to the house. "Are you okay??"

Him: Yeah, I'm getting hungry.

Roll of eyes and... then I make him lunch.

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.