Hooray For Fencing!

Actually....building fencing kinda sucks.  No matter what, the weather will be NOT in my favor, there's all sorts of biting, stinging, angry bugs looking to accost me the minute I walk out the door with a project in mind, and many a time a hammer will miss a nail and find, instead, my tender fingers.....Yes, the act of fencing is NOT one of my favorite jobs!

I will admit, cheerfully no less, that I DO enjoy seeing it completed! I haven't built anything outside in a LONG time plus I really wanted to be able to be gone on the weekends and not feel bad about not walking the goats those days! I enjoy seeing my less than perfect little fence job - remember, city girl here :P I'm not a master fence builder by any means - I'm just capable of building things strong enough (once the goats show me where they are weak) to keep the goats in!

Fifty feet long by 25 feet wide - no, it's not the most amazing biggest longest fence built ever - BUT IT FEELS LIKE IT haha! Eventually I will expand - slowly - to include more of the "yard" for them....maybe one day I will be brave enough to run them an adjoining pasture through those woods in the background. The girls would REALLY love that! Goats are browsers - not grazers - and they prefer to eat weeds, brushy things, and trees nor grass.  But they get plenty of hay and feed - so the grassy area is really more for them to be able to run and move around in.

Yes, we will still go on grazing walks - or "property grooming excursions" so they can eat all the poison oak, ivy and sumac they want around here (and we have a TON of it out here!) but at least now I can leave them on lock down and not feel bad about it.  When I have to leave, when company comes and we need to keep their cars safe, any time they should be on lockdown I don't feel bad any more :)

I don't know what I want my next project to be....I have several in mind....do I want to relocate the pig housing and build her a nice little spot right up here by the house? Do I want to renovate the chicken coop? I keep saying we are going to fence in the front of the property and get that done so the horses can be loose more...do I want to tackle that? I dunno....I think I want to get all of the little stuff out of the way first and that last one is a BIG job that will involve more than just myself! Oh yes....I got the neighbors son to help me unroll the fence along the posts, and I conned my husband into putting the clips on at the t-posts as I always spend way too long fighting with those stupid things - but everything else there was all me :) Took the better part of the last 5 days too LOL - but remember I start and end my days with a few hours of work so my days are not ALL fence related!

I dunno....I have a few things to think on and a day off (or two) to take AND I need to clean this house - I let it go 2 weeks ago when we had a flood (story to follow)....so while I rest and recover from my outside duties I will think on it and plot and plan....But I am happy to finally see the goats able to run and play and use their cable spool thing I brought home a year ago!

Tree trimmers - a blesing and a curse....

 See those thick lush woods?  Yeah...gorgeous to look at BUT when it is over head and all tangled in the power lines coming in to your house and across your driveway THAT is a SCARY sight!  I have been heckling the light company to come cut that crap for almost 2 years now!  And yes, it is THEIR job as it is on THEIR side of the pole - like for real, in the lines out over the street...um no, not my responsibility.  I pay them WAY too much $$$ to be risking getting electrocuted messing with all that and it was BAD overhead!  So I wake up LAST WEEK on Monday to a constant whirring whining noise...hmmm...I figure since they have been doing a TON of work on the ranch behind us that they are up to something down there and go on with my day...YES that whining whistling whirring noise is driving me nuts, but it ends pretty early in the afternoon and on with my business I go right?

So, Tuesday arrives with more of the same horrid obnoxious noise only closer. At this point I figure it HAS to be something on that ranch and I try to tune it out and move along ya know?

Wednesday gets here and LOW AND BEHOLD!  IT'S THE TREE TRIMMERS THE LIGHT COMPANY HAS BEEN PROMISING WOULD ARRIVE!!!!! Not just for me, but for EVERYONE - they sent a letter MONTHS ago now that they would be out and about clearing lines and NOW they are at my house, literally in front of my driveway!  I dance a little jig of joy, realize I should be dressed better with strangers about, and I get all bold and go ask them if they are gonna handle the stuff over the driveway, pointing it out to the man in charge and he says yes (keep in mind I was sweet as pie the whole time, offered beverages and such even) and then I go on with my day....until the noise stops...and they are gone....and NOTHING got done around the service lines into my place which was PROMISED in the letter they had sent months ago....hmmmm...oh well, they aren't done yet I figure.

Thursday I awake bright and early - cheered by the thought of FINALLY seeing a little daylight over the drive way and having those lines cleared.  Um yeah, no....NO ONE comes down here though I can hear them working just a short ways up...okay...now I am STILL super sweet and go out and ask if they need anything to get started, walk the NEW supervisor who was not there the day before down to show him and FINALLY at noon they pop up!

See that little bit of yellow out past my truck there?  Oh yeah - they pulled all sorts of stuff down in the driveway to get this handled!  Then...they stopped...FOR LUNCH PICNIC STYLE IN MY FREAKING DRIVEWAY!!!! Okay...so I can handle that - it is pretty shady there and it looks SUPER pretty right now all green and bright...cool deal....Mind you I am stalking their every move from inside the house - praying they don't drop a limb on a goat as the bucks are over there - and keeping in eye on the pig so he stays out of the way and such....tedious long day....

 Then, lunch over, they leave.  I go on with my day...the NEXT DAY I realize a few things:
1) They are gone - like gone gone, not around at all on the road here gone
2) They left me a TON of crap and limbs all over in stacks - no really look:

3) And HERE is where I get SUPER pissed - THEY CLEANED UP EVERY OTHER CRUMB, STICK, STEM, AND FALLEN LEAF ALL UP AND DOWN THE ROAD BUT DID NOT TAKE MINE?????? WTF?????? SUPER MAD!  But ya know.....at least it's done now right?

So...James was home this weekend (Mr Farmer has been gone all week and had to leave again this week for work) and he mowed and helped me haul all that to the burn pile. Sadly I ran out of pile before I ran out of limbs, I need to get the Smoke Signal lit again and then add the rest....shaking my head....But like I said....

At least I can see daylight over the driveway now and NOTHING is touching those power lines!  Gotta be happy about small miracles, even if they come wrapped in more work for me :P

For real? FOR REAL I say????

No, really....this:

At 6a.m. I was awoken - rudely - by the non-stop ringing of the house phone.  For real??? NO ONE calls me at 6a.m. - they KNOW I JUST went to bed!!!!  So...I stumble tot he phone and it would be my husband, stuck, on the side of the road with a flat tire...and the spare is flat too (actually it's BEEN flat out in front of our shed for a few months now - I KNOW, I need to fix it right?)

The whole reason he took the truck is because the fuel pump is going out on our jeep - we just need to make it to the weekend when he has a day off to fix the damn thing!  So, anyways, he took the truck today and didn't even make it out of the county!

So...off I go to rescue him.  Being early in the day and knowing my sleep schedule was all thrown off, when came home, I fed everything and I took a nap.  UNTIL 2p.m.!!!  OH NO!  The day is gone I tell you!  At least he had located the best deal on a new tire by then.  We actually need all 4 new tires (5 if you count the spare) but pay day being literally ONE DAY AWAY...we got one today.  It took 3 hours of my evening to go get the tire mounted and get it all switched on the truck and limp on home.

Seriously, sometimes I wonder how I ever get anything done when things like this happen and throw my whole day into a spin like that! I had planned to make 2 batches of soap today, and get the goats all caught up on whatever they needed for the month of April.  Nope, didn't happen.

Oh well...at least now I am one tire closer to having all of them new again huh? Have to keep the farm truck running - you need a truck on a farm!  Also, this means my new soap cutter I want will be put off for a while...but that's okay too.  It was a want, not a need, and tires are a need for sure!

Where did My Weekend Go????

And what did I get done???  Oh my goodness!  It feels like a great big bunch of "NOTHING" got done....how sad....

Sometimes life outside the farm happens and WHOA does it mess stuff up!  Friday and Saturday there were major errands to run, and not much time spent at the farm for a change...Then I had to go out in the dark on Saturday night to rescue the hubby because a radiator hose choose to explode and die violently on his way home - an hour from the house - woo fun...NOT!

Sunday was spent changing that hose, changing the oil in the vehicles, and putting in a new starter on the jeep which we have been needing to do pretty desperately - like starting the jeep with a hammer from underneath desperately - but the hubby hasn't been home to fix it.  So that was Sunday, buh-bye Sunday, you were spent on maintenance....

I guess what I am saying is:  It's Spring, don't forget to look over the farm truck once or twice and show it a little lovin' too!  While you're out there giving all the farm critters a good once over do the same for your vehicles so you don't get stranded on a run to the feed store or your way to a goat show...it's not as much fun as going out for a ride with the horses, but it's still pretty crucial...

Guess I best be heading outside today to catch up on the all stuff I didn't get done this weekend....