48 Hours

The last two days have been a whirlwind. If I don't get back to work soon, I might possibly kill myself by way of manual labor.

OK, that might possibly be overstating a tad, but it's how a feel, and as you well know, I rarely hold back when it comes to how I feel.

I'm. In. Pain. Here's why:

I spent most of Sunday with Dad getting all the lines marked for the new fence. Saturday morning we picked up 10 panels, and by the end of Sunday, we knew we needed 18 more, plus a few special-order lengths, plus our gates. That doesn't include the 30-something posts and bags of cement, plus the panel ends and corners. In other words, this is only the beginning.

You wouldn't think it would take several hours to get everything staked and flagged, but it was a trial-and-error sort of project.

We ended up having a happy little mistake--the panels didn't flesh out all the way to the end, so we were going to end up making quite a few special-length panels, or I would end up with a walkway.

I loved the idea of a walkway between the horse pens and the turnout area. That will leave a double fence so horses aren't leaning over to pick on each other, and it gives me a perfect space to feed horses from, without having to fight any in the turnout or walk clear around the north side of the pens. Perfect!

Evie thinks she's a farm dog now.

Dad went home but I kept working--got some more trees trimmed and worked on horse-proofing the shelter. If you don't have horses, just let me say this: biologically they have to be related to beavers. No matter how much feed you give them, they will eat every piece of wood in sight if not covered with metal.

Swine horses.


Changing gears, I got the brooder all cleaned out and put in fresh bedding and bleached out their waterer and feeder last night. They were pretty happy chicks.

That big Barred Rock there is "Ruth." She's the only one I've named, because she's the only one of the bunch that will actually walk up to me.

Yes, I have gotten attached. No, no one is surprised.

Today I decided to start cleaning out the old, one-room house that will eventually serve as a shop to store all my tools in, and in getting things organized, I'm also cleaning up the pump house. I took "before" pictures that I'll share as soon as those two projects are done, but I did want to share one result of cleaning those sheds out:

These are all CANS. For years my Dad collected cans and put them in these buildings, planning on taking them in for recycling. The latter part never happened--with his schedule and only one weekend off a month for many years, it just wasn't practical--so the mice tore open the bags and cans were everywhere. I started cleaning them up about a year ago and it was overwhelming, so that project got pushed aside--until today.

In all honesty I did take them to the recycling center to see if I could get a little extra cash (Dad said it was fine with him and I am unemployed afterall, which makes me especially cheap) but they were closed, so I dropped them off at the church camp collection area. I was happy to get them off the farm, and hopefully they'll help someone out!

Since I was in town anyway I picked up some more mulch, got home, let the dogs out, and started working on my veggie garden. I had Evie tied up, since she's only been here a couple of weeks I don't quite trust her to run free yet (being so close to the highway and all). Charlie decided he'd play with her a bit.

My 13 year old Aussie playing with my 3 month old Mini-Aussie. They're quite a pair.

Earlier today I had already turned the soil and compost over in the main area of my veggie garden, so all I had to do this evening was mulch it and work on the smaller veggie garden. In the smaller area, there was an unused grounding rod that I wanted to dig out.

Apparently proper grounds reach China.

It took a while (and the post hole diggers) but that sucker finally came out.

And the garden was complete...until planting time, anyway.

This morning I also got a roundbale of alfalfa delivered for the horses (forgot to get a picture there) but their truck broke down while the hired man was delivering it, so I had to tow him out of the pen. I felt bad the transmission went out, but talk about timing--it was right after we got the hay bale set!

It's nice to get things accomplished, though. Well, my mind thinks so. My body, right now, says otherwise.

Ibuprofen is my new bestest friend,