Ridgetop - our place and how we muddle along

[Ridgetop]

Thank you, we will look at it. But chain link??? We have finally gotten rid of the last of that stuff. Put it in before we knew what we were doing. $600,000 is pretty high for 35 acres. Well over $17,000 per acre. 2 BR house, no AG designation. Doesn't sound like what we are looking for, but you never know. Taxes would be around 12,000 at 2% rate which is more than we pay now. We need the AG designation to afford the taxes.

 

[Ridgetop]

Spent today getting several flats of strawberries ready for jam. Also made split pea soup with rest of ham bones. Now I need to freeze it. Will make another 30 or so lbs of meat loaf tomorrow also for freezer.

Brought our lambs home from butcher. Having leg of lamb tonight. Can't wait to eat lamb again. We have been out of lamb for a year.

DH, DS1 and DS2 spent yesterday and today taking down the dead tree by the barn. This morning when they went to cut up the larger pieces they found that the extremely large chainsaw DH rented needed a new chain. The old one was so cull t was trying to burn its way through the wood. The rental place is closed until Tuesday. So DH had to go looking for another chain to buy for the rental saw. The new chain keeps loosening and slipping off too. Harsh words will fly on Tuesday at the rental store.

DD1 brought our eldest grandson, age 11, over with the instructions to "work him till he drops, then throw water on him and work him some more". Apparently he is dilatory in getting his school reports etc. done. He is in a highly gifted magnet and can easily do the work but procrastinates on doing the work until DD1 can't stand it. According to DS1, DD1 has sent him for the night and to work tomorrow. Well, I will let his grandfather and uncles deal with him. I dealt with enough children fooling around instead of getting their homework done quickly and I didn't put up with it then. I guess he will be working all weekend on hard labor. DS1 is taking GS2 and GD1 to see the Aladdin movie. GS1 lost that privilege last week. Just shows that smart kids can be awfully dumb.

 

[Ridgetop]

RAIN!? IN END OF MAY IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA?! Can AOC be right about the world ending in 12 years? No, she doesn't even now what a garbage disposal is. While I don't use mine that often being on a septic system, at least I know what it is. And she thinks that because tornados are hitting the country that it means the end of the world too. What?! Can't wait to see what AOC says next!
She is a hoot! But sadly some people believe that she knows what she is talking about . . . .

Oh well, back to the rain. It rained Saturday night, all day Sunday, then Sunday night into the early hours. The stuff that was cut and cleared will be up again in no time. DS1 has decided to put in more cross fencing. He plans to fence 200' out from all buildings and down fro all buildings. I suggested this before but was vetoed - too much work for too little gain. Now that they are looking at clearing several times the work in installing 200-800' feet of woven wire fence looks like less work than falling down a ravine multiple times while weed whacking. We have lots of 4"x5" cross arms that are 12' long. We can cut them in half and sink them in the ground 2' and run 42" woven wire or even 48" field fence which is much cheaper and is woven also. Since this is an interior fence, the larger spaces are ok and we don't have to go all the way to the ground which is uneven anyway. We also have 10' cross arms which we can use as corner posts, gate posts, and intersperse between the 6' posts. We will put gates between the fields so we can drive the sheep through. Although since our sheep are trained to follow a grain bucket, it may not be necessary to put gates between the pastures. We can't drive in there - it is too steep, and we don't want to chase the sheep around on a 60 degree slope! The number of gates are still up for discussion. We need to build the V shaped dog gates in though so the dogs can access all the pens easily. We will also put up another interior fold with our arena fencing and out another teepee sheep shelter in it. We would fence onto the flat area at the top of the gully and put the shelters in each pen, but we need room to pull our trailers out and turn around on the flat area, so the top fencing will be just below the rim of the flat.

My friend has asked if we want to sell Josie the Mule. She plans to sell her donkey and would be interested in buying Josie for her partner. She already has a mule as well. I have decided to do it. I never ride Josie any more and she is lonely with no equine friends. My friend is a long time mule owner and rider and would give her the best care and attention. I don't really want to do it, but it would be the best for Josie. She loves trail riding and would be much happier. She would only be a few miles away, but it will be sad for us.

Poor DH caught a bad cold Friday. He was miserable while they were taking down the tree and yesterday, but s feeling better. He catches something and it lasts for 2-3 days max, I catch something and have it for weeks! Not Fair! But I am happy he is feeling better. Now DS1 and DS2 are hacking around the house. I am in hiding.

Yesterday I made meatloaf with 20 lbs. of assorted ground meat - beef, pork, chicken, and lamb. Exhausted last night from being on my feet all day. I did 4 loads of laundry too. Then cleaned the refrigerator. Several loads of dishes - no matter how much I clean the sink, I always end up with dirty dishes. My new and improved energy efficient dishwasher takes a minimum of 113 minutes to do a load. Heavy duty time is 246 minutes! I loved my old dishwasher - only half hour to produce clean dry dishes. I could power through 2 loads of milking and pasteurizing equipment, the cleanup from jam and pickle making, a huge family dinner, and be done in 3 hours. Now one load takes forever. If I do a lot of cooking in the afternoon then I can't load the dinner dishes into the dishwasher after dinner since the thing is still running!

My tomatoes are looking very odd. Almost dead on top even though DS1 watered them while I was out of town. They look burned in the middle. A couple don't have any burns on the outside of them, just the inside of the crown! I think I have figured it out though. Bubba is very tall and they are still only about 15" tall so I think he is peeing right on top of them. Bad Bubba, no biscuit! Hopefully they will continue to grow and get tall soon enough to escape Bubba's acid rainfall. The other garden plants are doing well. The cucumbers are starting up their support, the zuchini are huge, the beans are up, the strawberries are starting to bear, and the children's cherry tomatoes are doing well. BUT 3 of the yellow crookneck are gone. I now only have 4 hills left and they are our favorite squash. They suffered when DS1 was repairing the water line. It didn't help that Bubba and Rika wanted to help him. I tried to get Bubba out and finally went to turn the hose on him, but NO WATER ! The water line had come apart again and DS1 was off getting parts. Finally I coaxed and fussed until Bubba jumped out. The Crookneck are in a raised bed. I put a 30" tall garden fence around them but Rika and Bubba are so big that it was nothing for them. At least they haven't gotten in and dug a soft bed. They are doing that in the tomato bed. Luckily I just planted tomatoes far apart there since I plant indeterminate varieties and they continue to grow. I used to planted them close together and it was like fighting through the jungle to pick mu tomatoes.

Consider this picture, I was surrounding by swirling vines, my hands and basket full of tomatoes, trying not to crush tomatoes and vines under foot and contorted like I was paying a game of Twister. Suddenly I was confronted by a tomato hornworm! t was right next to the tomato I was reaching for! Those suckers are huge and ugly! I tried to jump back, was caught in the vines and fell into the bushes spewing tomatoes everywhere. Attracted by my shrieks, DH came out and had himself a good laugh! I live to make life enjoyable for my family.

Now I plant the tomatoes farther apart. It means more weeding but easier picking. And no sneak attacks by those disgusting hornworms.

 

[greybeard]

Thank you, we will look at it. But chain link??? We have finally gotten rid of the last of that stuff. Put it in before we knew what we were doing. $600,000 is pretty high for 35 acres. Well over $17,000 per acre. 2 BR house, no AG designation. Doesn't sound like what we are looking for, but you never know. Taxes would be around 12,000 at 2% rate which is more than we pay now. We need the AG designation to afford the taxes.

Asking price has already been met and bidding, even tho it isn't officially on market is now $800K.

 

[Baymule]

Yes that is sad about Josie the mule, but sometimes we have to do what is best for those we love. I know how much you love and cherish her, letting her go to a home where she will be happier is hard, but better for her.

What dishwasher do you have so that I never buy one like it. My $300 one does just fine, but someday it will die and need to be replaced. Why don't they include run time on those efficiency tags?

My garden is sporting the most lush weeds you ever saw. I also have kale, cabbage, brussel sprouts that are doing well. The eggplant is finally deciding to grow, maybe it was applications of fresh Cornish cross chicken poop that made them stop languishing about and start putting out new leaves and even a couple of blooms. The tomatoes are blooming and I even have tiny tomatoes on the New Yorker, a determinate variety. I also have German Johnson and Cherokee Purple which never stop making vines. The lettuce is bolting and is disgusting, spit it OUT bitter. The broccoli is a flop, with a few tiny heads. Onions are ready to pull. The wild black eyed susans are huge and blooming, a cheery spot. Beets are just meh. I planted what is supposed to be a summer replacement for lettuce, called mizuna, it loves the heat. The leaves taste a little like radish, don't know if we're going to like a salad made out of them, we'll see.

At least I don't have dogs peeing on the garden, it is fenced. LOL LOL

 

[Ridgetop]

Asking price has already been met and bidding, even tho it isn't officially on market is now $800K.

OK. Thanks.

 

[Ridgetop]

At least I don't have dogs peeing on the garden, it is fenced. LOL LOL

Garden fencing needs to be 6' high I guess. The tomatoes are not fenced because there is enough space to jump into the garden area We have separate areas for our tomatoes, zuchini, crookneck, etc. The strawberries and beans are planted in raised plastic tubs. They are the large black storage bins with the yellow tops available at Lowes and Walmart. DD2 had a bunch of heavy stuff packed in them. After stacking them all the way up and storing for a year or two, the tops have cracked. Instead of dumping the bottoms we thought of other uses. We used them for feeders in the barn, and occasionally water, but DS1 says they are too flimsy so I decided to use them for small raised planters. I drilled 4 drainage holes, filled them with garden mix, and planted. Bubba doesn't pee on them for some reason. We are planning to move the corral fence (8 bar panels) over 10' and fence off the area between the side chain link fencing to make a 10' by 30' garden area. I plan to build raised beds though since I need to line them with wire against gophers. Then we will fence off each end of the 30' length with a gate at one end and voila! A nice fenced off garden space adjacent to my current garden beds.

 

[Ridgetop]

My shearer came out and took the baby wool off the young yearling ram we bought last year and the fall ewe lamb we bred. I wanted to see their body type before deciding if I would keep them or sell them. Not really sure about ether one I like the fall ewe lamb, but will have to see if she sheds out next year. It the yearling ram doesn't shed out next year, I might sell him.

My shearer decided he wanted to buy the last 2 Dorset ewes I had. They have been exposed to my Lewis ram for 2 months now. He sheared them and we loaded them into his truck. They are nice big ewes, easy lambers, good moms Hopefully he will get September-October lambs out of them. He has an acre piece to clear but his dad has 40 acres in the Antelope Valley. High Desert, but after the rains last winter full of pasture forage. If he pumps enough water AV grows excellent alfalfa. Not sure if he has enough AG water for it though. His dad used to grow alfalfa so could do it now that he is retired from line work. They are an old 4-H family, so experienced in dealing with sheep. No worries there.

Now we can bring in the Lewis ram from the main field and turn out the new ewes and ram n the large field. That way we will not have to feed them hay. Next month, we will turn out the ewelings with them. If the front flock have not remarked we will turn them out with the Axtell ram as well, and use him as a clean up ram. The other 2 rams will go into the small pen in the back and the rest of the sheep will be on the large field until it is time to lamb the first group.

We will also fence off 2 more 100 x 200 pastures in the large field so we can turn the ewes and lambs in when the rains bring up the forage again. Our goal is no field cutting no matter how much rain we get. We need intensive rotational grazing pastures to accomplish this.

Hay prices are down and we are stocking up on hay for the winter. We can leave the hay stacked on the field inside the empty horse corrals. Come rainy season, we will tarp the stacks. It is not humid here like the south east so tarping the stacks on top doesn't cause the hay to mold. DH wants to get another Connex container and put it about 12' from the 1st. Then he will roof between the 2 containers and that will be a hay storage shed. It will be open on each end for air circulation, loading and unloading the hay bales.

Still planning our trip to Texas. Wondering if north west TX might be a good place to settle with our sheep. Lots of sheep there so access to the slaughter facilities might be easier. On the other hand, can we lease out hay fields there? Are there hayfields there? Would we have to have AG water and irrigation lines?

 

[greybeard]

We refer to that as the Texas Panhandle. In a word, it's 'dry', but
the Ogallala Aquifer is under it and if you can capture it, you can have it..........maybe.

https://www.hppr.org/post/down-last-drop-texas-panhandle-water-crisis

windy and dusty there. And the coldest part of Texas in the winter.
USAToday describes it as 26,000 sq miles of "hot and dusty".
climate of the Texas Panhandle region:
https://traveltips.usatoday.com/climate-texas-panhandle-104945.html
Land is cheap tho. For a reason.
Here's one perfect for you....a full section, 640ac
https://www.point2homes.com/US/Vacant-Land-For-Sale/TX/Dalhart/Dalhart-Airport-Grass/69654351.html

Yes you would have to irrigate..that's what the round areas are in the picture of the one above.

It's typical...the above tract is one of these:

I say go for it! You'll love it out there.

 

[Baymule]

Well, you are already used to hot and dry. In the Texas panhandle, crop circles do not refer to visitations by space aliens.