Ridgetop - our place and how we muddle along

[Baymule]

There is only one locust of any size and it’s up in the front fence row. It might make a fence post-maybe. There are little scrubby things out in the fields. Those will be cut and the stumps poisoned.

 

[Baymule]

No idea what happened there!

 

[Ridgetop]

I pulled that portion out since I realized it should have gone on your thread about your barn.
Since you don't have any honey locust trees of your own, Margali and I will be glad to donate all of ours.

 

[Ridgetop]

I wonder if using electric fencing for the Dorpers would work or if they would escape like goats are prone to do. I have heard that electric fencing is less effective with sheep that carry wool since the fleece insulates them from the shock. However, we will have the 2 horses and the mule to pasture too. Josie The Mule will go in with her beloved sheep, but the other two can go either in with the rams, or the grower pasture. I would like to separate Skittles (TWH mare) and Sage (mustang gelding) since he loves skittles and shows it by chewing off her lovely tail. Her lovely flowing tail now looks like a club attached to her rear end. All that is left is a hairy tail bone. If DDIL1 had told me he did that, I would have kept them separated! She can go in with the mule and he will have to be in another pasture. Or vice versa. He has not tried to touch Josie The Mule's flowing tail. Maybe he is afraid of her.

Anyway, electric fencing. I know it has to make a circle to complete the circuit. Can it complete the circle and circuit on a straight section of fence? As a top and middle strand of wire? The ground rods can go in the pasture and actually be placed either near the ponds, or near the water troughs, outside the fences. Placing them near the water troughs should keep the ground damp enough to make them work well. Here on our current property our ground is so dry that electric fences are not as effective. Also with the steep slopes, it is hard to string wire and then checking the wires for current means going up and down a 20–30-degree slope to fix anything. But on flat ground in Yantis electric fencing would work - Cody successfully used a hot wire around his hay bales to keep the cattle away from them, and Jeremy used a hot wire around the new fruit trees.

 

[Ridgetop]

OMG!
DH just said that he heard from DS3 that I posted about him running into the pump shed! KATIE - are you reading these private postings - read only by a few hundred of my closest BYH friends - to your husband?

It is a good thing I don't care if he finds out what I post! I denied it and told him that either DS1 or DS2 must have told DS3 what he did.

 

[Ridgetop]

By the way, when are you going to post on here?

 

[Baymule]

Oh no! Your own family is stalking you here on BYH? Your last bastion of privacy has been invaded! Of course the hundreds or maybe thousands of BYH members are privy to your musings, thoughts and rants about your beloved family. Should I mention the lurkers who never join, but haunt the internet like shadowy figures, reading but never posting? Nah, I won’t mention lurkers.

Hello Ridgetop family! I’m her Phone-A-Friend in Texas! She enters her credit card information and she can talk as long as she wants. And y’all thought she didn’t have any REAL FRIENDS!!!!

 

[Margali]

Anyway, electric fencing. I know it has to make a circle to complete the circuit. Can it complete the circle and circuit on a straight section of fence? As a top and middle strand of wire? The ground rods can go in the pasture and actually be placed either near the ponds, or near the water troughs, outside the fences. Placing them near the water troughs should keep the ground damp enough to make them work well. Here on our current property our ground is so dry that electric fences are not as effective. Also with the steep slopes, it is hard to string wire and then checking the wires for current means going up and down a 20–30-degree slope to fix anything. But on flat ground in Yantis electric fencing would work - Cody successfully used a hot wire around his hay bales to keep the cattle away from them, and Jeremy used a hot wire around the new fruit trees.

Dorpers do not seem have a lot of wool coverage on head or neck. That allows a decent shock when they stick head up to or under fence. The Shepherdess at Harmony Farms on Youtube is a Dorper farm in East Texas. She used electric tape for her sheep fencing successfully.

There are 2 ways to run the electric depending on how dry the soil is: negative-positive and positive only. Positive-negative is used for dry soil. The wire does not complete a circuit by itself, the animal completes the circuit. Premier1 has a great page on their website explaining things.

 

[Ridgetop]

TSC MEMORIAL DAY SALE

330' roll OK brand 48" sheep and goat wire on sale for $341.99! Regular price $399
Red Brand 48" sheep and goat wire on sale for $359.99
Regular $419

Been waiting for this sale since Margali posted it several years ago. One day sale (?) available in 5 stores around Sulphur Springs, but wire not available in California

 

[Ridgetop]

Should I mention the lurkers who never join, but haunt the internet like shadowy figures, reading but never posting?

That must be what my family are - LURKERS! HIDDEN LURKERS!
It's ok, they have no shame. LOL

Hoping my DDIL1 will start posting on here now. @SecrethavenFarm I think is her name. She is a frequent person on BYC but has just gotten her first trio of young Boer goats! Congrats! I would post pix but am waiting to let her have that opportunity. DS3 texted yesterday that they had picked up the trio, buck, 2 does, and sent pix. Pix were hard to see in the field of weeds, but one doe(?) is really long, and the buck (?) is extremely thick and meaty. They look pretty good, and DS3 knows his meat goats so he probably chose good ones. He sent a photo of the buck's sire - looks like a red Angus bull! Really heavy and thick.

Good job family! Post pix and let us know how you like them. (Be sure to lock them up at night since you don't have any LGDs.)

DD2 says that she and her husband will be moving to Texas next year. They plan to start renting in the north Fort Worth area while they decide where they will end up. Her birth sister lives in Anna. She wants to be no more than an hour from us, so will be looking on the east side of Dallas for a permanent place eventually. DSIL2 is moving his job driving big rigs and can work from anywhere in the country so we are super happy if they can swing this. They are moving for full custody of 5 year old and a "move order" allowing them to move out of state. Some stuff going on with birth mother and stepfather behavior causing child to have serious school problems that birth mother refuses to address with teacher, or consider counselor for child. Have to see what happens on that front but I think they have decided if they cannot leave with Maysie, they will surrender custody in order to be able to move out of state.

Went into milk shed and tool shed and sorted through paint. Bonanza! Found 10 gallons of unopened paint and primer, both interior and exterior! $400 saved!
The exterior paints are medium gray and light gray which will be perfect for the shutters on the house. Also found a gallon of deep turquoise paint for the front door. Score! I can always change the front door color later. DH said that he will be painting the exterior of the house. Luckily, with most of it being brick, that will mainly be the porch roof, and the trim. We will power wash everything, then he can mask off the brick and go to work.

He doesn't want to use the paint sprayer on anything, including the interior ceilings that are "popcorn". I am considering eventually putting another coat of plaster on them and doing a smoother finish. I removed the popcorn ceilings from our current house years ago and redid the ceilings with just a tape and patch. I don't want to remove the existing popcorn since taking the stuff off will reveal that the seams were not taped. Instead, I might eventually try to do a "skip trowel" finish over the popcorn. I will try this in the big bathroom first, since all the ceilings are popcorn, even in the bathroom and kitchen! The bathroom has some damage in a corner that needs work anyway so perfect for practicing the repair. You have to prime the ceiling no matter what so the water in the latex paint doesn't cause any of the ceiling material to loosen and come off the ceiling. Then add some water to the joint compound to make it easier to smear. Use a wide trowel to smear it over the ceiling in smoothing motions. It will leave a pattern on the ceiling but will remove the popcorn look. Simulates a "knockdown" look, but not as dramatic, uses less joint compound, and is easier to do. There is a large crack in the LR ceiling caused by the snow weight on the roof from the first Snowmageddon. It has gotten worse, but I will scrape some of the popcorn off, tape the crack, and then use spray on popcorn repair. I did that in DD1's old house when they sold. DS3 had run electric wiring for DSIL1's computer stuff through the attic and put his foot in the wrong place. OOPS! A small hole in the ceiling drywall that I had to repair. They had popcorn ceilings and it turned out very nice. No fears that I can repair this crack. Whether I do the "skip trowel" treatment or leave the popcorn look, haven't decided. I won't do it before we are ready to replace the carpet anyway.

Next great d$$ saving discovery I made was in the cabinets in the tool shed. The used cabinet we install had some pullouts in them. I measured them and the stainless-steel double trash can pullout will fit fine and save me $198 at Lowes. In addition, next to that pullout, is a vertical baking sheet holder that I can remove and reinstall in Yantis. Another couple bucks saved. There is also a blind corner cabinet in the shed with a pullout that brings the stuff in the back of the cabinet to the front. I am not sure if I can use it in Texas but I measured it and will take pix so I can check. If not I can probably order one online. There are also 2 cabinets with pullout shelves that I measured and will check to see if they can be used in any of the cupboards. I may have to modify the older cabinets a bit to make the pullouts fit but I think I can do it. More $$$ saved with a little bit of DIY sweat and tears. I need all my money for the new quartz countertops. And fences, always those pesky fences.

Other stuff to take back went on my list, some specialty tools, my stash of new knobs and pulls (at least 50-75) and other hardware that will be needed and come in handy in TX. Lots of different size screws all sorted into containers. Sounds silly to transport them, why not just buy them back in Texas? BUT at $2 a packet for 25 screws, and needing different sizes and types, that mounts up. Not to mention the cost of the containers to sort them into. These are already sorted into marked containers so why not just pack them into a carton and take them along.

I was telling DH about all the stuff that I will take back to save us money and he said, "But where will be store it all?" I told him thts we have lots of room in both the shed and barn tack room for more shelves which we currently have in the milk shed holding almost nothing. We can consolidate everything that will not be going with us in the next couple trips and bring another couple 6' x 6' x 18" heavy duty shelves along. I had to show him the picture of the tack shed after we cleaned it out with only one shelf unit in it and completely empty. Then he was happy and is making plans to load it on top of the fencing panels.

He also was worrying about restringing the kennel panels where the chain link is all bent and messed up from using them for goats and sheep. He kept worrying about having to buy new 6' wire to do the restringing but didn't want to use chain link. I told him that there would be 6' fencing left over after fencing the property since I bought 12 330' rolls and we are not even fencing 3200'. Plenty of fencing wire left to use on the kennel panels and old chain link gate frames. We are taking all of those old welded gate frames with to make walk through gates in our sheep fences or in the barn pens. Now he plans to take off the chain link wire here, keep the stretcher bars if they are good, and the attaching hardware for reuse in Texas. He can do that with a can of WD40, a wrench and a set of sockets. I will give him a couple gallon size clear plastic jars to put the attachments in. I also found the bucket of 12" carriage bolts, washers, and nuts in the shed that we use when building with the cross arms. I will take a walk around with a crowbar and pry them out of the crossarms we used for edging the horse path before we bought the lot next door. The crossarms are lifting up from the soil due to erosion anyway, and we will need the bolts in Texas. They cost about $4-6 each too. Also any useable crossarms. "A penny saved . . . ."

Cody hopes to cut hay in a couple weeks or so. The weather has not been cooperating. Thanks to what I have picked up from Farmerjan's posts over the years, I was able to explain to DH why it is not good to cut hay and leave it for several periods of rain and tedding in the field before baling. Thanks Jan! The chicken litter has not been spread yet either. No problem since I would rather the hay was made before the litter goes on the fields. Don't want all that expensive chicken litter getting baled up in the hay!!! Better it gets spread on the cut fields after everything is baled so it can wash into the soil.

We have 2 trees that lost half their trunks down over winter with the heavy rains and wind. DS1 pulled one up from the slope and is trying out the battery chain saw on it. We are waiting to get to Texas to try out the pole saw. Hope he likes it. We can also use the larger Milwaukee belonging to DS2 here at home.