Baymule
Herd Master
Your sheep have better manners than mine. My idiots just jump in the feed bunk. But my patience has run out and I grab them, pull a leg or whatever I can think that they don’t like and the dummies scramble to get out.
SageHill Ranch Journal
- Thread starter SageHill
- Start date
Mini Horses
Herd Master
My goats like to sleep IN the feeders. 
. Actually, they like to sleep on top of most anything they find to jump on. 
You look pretty ready for your " storm event"
. Actually, they like to sleep on top of most anything they find to jump on. You look pretty ready for your " storm event"
- Thread starter
- #483
SageHill
Herd Master
@Baymule and @Mini Horses -- I'm blocking communication between your livestock and mine and getting a one-way ticket for the ram lam to head east to one of you before he teaches the rest of mine!! 
or maybe, just maybe I inadvertently scared him enough yesterday to never try that again!! 
or maybe, just maybe I inadvertently scared him enough yesterday to never try that again!!
Baymule
Herd Master
My sheep are BAAAAAD!
Baymule
Herd Master
Houston news showing Hurricane Hilary preparations. OMG!!! The street is WET!
- Thread starter
- #486
SageHill
Herd Master
What a week. Well not crazy or anything, just a lot of stuff. Started out with last Saturday getting the ranch storm ready. Not really a big deal, just something that needed to be done. It all got done with time to spare (the way I like it!).
The storm (aka Hilary) came through starting around 3-4AM Sunday morning. It was the perfect storm. Hours and hours of constant steady gentle rain. Perfect for our rock hard sun scorched ground (it's normal state this time of year). The heavy rains started late Sunday afternoon. All the early rain got the ground ready to absorb what came down rather than just have run off. So, so nice. By Monday morning it was all done. Stayed cloudy - perfect again letting the ground recover and not crust over.
Monday brought the usual after storm work fun. Tractor, UTV and harrow, taking down tarps and replacing outside cushions. Amazingly - with just under 2 1/2 inches of rain in 24 hrs the corral was not a quagmire! Sheep were happy to go outside after being stuck in the barn for a day.
The weather for the week was nice, I think that Summer and Fall are going to duke it out because it was almost Fall-like. Of course, today Summer has returned. But there is hope!
Figs are finally, 2 months late, starting to come in. YAY. Enough figs to enjoy, but not enough to put up. Trees are still young, next year I may be putting up fig jam I hope. Today I started ripping out tomato plants from the veggie gardens. Actually good timing as I couldn't put snail and slug stuff down because the plants were sooo thick. I've got more tomato plants that I've had on hold in the greenhouse that I will put in the gardens once I turned and refreshed the soil. I'll have a little break from the heavy harvesting I was doing the last 6 weeks or so. I've got some others that are starting to produce - one has huge tomatoes - but most of them are splitting at the stem end. It's a volunteer from something or hybrid from something that I had last year.
.
Sunset before the storm, complete with God beams
.
Mud wash from the about to be replanted avocado grove. LOVE my tractor - it was fun
cleaning it up. And the guys doing the grove were looked a little surprised that the lady
was running the tractor. I waved, they waved back.
The ranch road was in need of refreshing. I wasn't about to boxblade it when things were
so dry - but that rain set me up for the perfect conditions of rip out growth, relevel, and
regrade. There's something that's very fulfilling looking at the dark brown ribbon of road
that meanders through the ranch. The arenas were also groomed - they look nice too.
With tiny bits of new green coming through I decided it was time to take the sheep out to graze
a ~little bit with the lambs. We stayed just outside the pasture. With the lambs I didn't want to go
far in case they got a case of the crazy zoomies. It worked out great. The hillsides continue to
green up, so I hope we'll get some cool mornings to do this again. Cool I say because there
are certain critters we do not want to encounter.
Speaking of them - they are out ....
DH found this one weed whacking. Together we gave it a permanent
relocation.
The storm (aka Hilary) came through starting around 3-4AM Sunday morning. It was the perfect storm. Hours and hours of constant steady gentle rain. Perfect for our rock hard sun scorched ground (it's normal state this time of year). The heavy rains started late Sunday afternoon. All the early rain got the ground ready to absorb what came down rather than just have run off. So, so nice. By Monday morning it was all done. Stayed cloudy - perfect again letting the ground recover and not crust over.
Monday brought the usual after storm work fun. Tractor, UTV and harrow, taking down tarps and replacing outside cushions. Amazingly - with just under 2 1/2 inches of rain in 24 hrs the corral was not a quagmire! Sheep were happy to go outside after being stuck in the barn for a day.
The weather for the week was nice, I think that Summer and Fall are going to duke it out because it was almost Fall-like. Of course, today Summer has returned. But there is hope!
Figs are finally, 2 months late, starting to come in. YAY. Enough figs to enjoy, but not enough to put up. Trees are still young, next year I may be putting up fig jam I hope. Today I started ripping out tomato plants from the veggie gardens. Actually good timing as I couldn't put snail and slug stuff down because the plants were sooo thick. I've got more tomato plants that I've had on hold in the greenhouse that I will put in the gardens once I turned and refreshed the soil. I'll have a little break from the heavy harvesting I was doing the last 6 weeks or so. I've got some others that are starting to produce - one has huge tomatoes - but most of them are splitting at the stem end. It's a volunteer from something or hybrid from something that I had last year.
.
Sunset before the storm, complete with God beams
.
Mud wash from the about to be replanted avocado grove. LOVE my tractor - it was fun
cleaning it up. And the guys doing the grove were looked a little surprised that the lady
was running the tractor. I waved, they waved back.
The ranch road was in need of refreshing. I wasn't about to boxblade it when things were
so dry - but that rain set me up for the perfect conditions of rip out growth, relevel, and
regrade. There's something that's very fulfilling looking at the dark brown ribbon of road
that meanders through the ranch. The arenas were also groomed - they look nice too.
With tiny bits of new green coming through I decided it was time to take the sheep out to graze
a ~little bit with the lambs. We stayed just outside the pasture. With the lambs I didn't want to go
far in case they got a case of the crazy zoomies. It worked out great. The hillsides continue to
green up, so I hope we'll get some cool mornings to do this again. Cool I say because there
are certain critters we do not want to encounter.
Speaking of them - they are out ....
DH found this one weed whacking. Together we gave it a permanent
relocation.
Baymule
Herd Master
Such satisfaction in being able to get outside and actually do some work! I see that Kubota orange! What HP? Mine is a small 23 HP, her name is Marigold. Everything was perfect right up to the rattlesnake, then that got made perfect too. LOL I’m glad you got rain.
- Thread starter
- #488
SageHill
Herd Master
It’s a 3901 I call her Bota (yeah I know sooo creative
). 35 hp. Love it, makes things so much easier.Mini Horses
Herd Master
I have a Branson, 24, but great machine! Attachments -- have several & will buy more
call mine "Arnie", as in Schwarzenegger love my Arnie!! Muscle without backtalk.
call mine "Arnie", as in Schwarzenegger love my Arnie!! Muscle without backtalk.
Ridgetop
Herd Master
Love naming our vehicles, started with DH and I, and now our kids all name theirs. LOL
When I was a girl, we had some that were so bad the streets flooded into stores. In 1970 we had a series - I was taking the bus to work and had to take off my shoes to wade home through knee high water from the bus stop. Those late 60's early 70's storms came every year for abut 7 years. Had one in 77-78 that flooded over the LA River channel and caused an area to be closed and bus passengers to be air lifted out of the dam spill area in SFV. DD1 was an infant, and they closed that road just after we had gotten through. A couple years the rains were so hard that I had to pull the car over and wait for them to lighten up in order to get the kids home from school. Couldn't see out the windshield. Had one in the 80's at our old house - we pulled the roof off to reroof in August. Big mistake. Entire downstairs leaked and we had a 2-story house! In the late 80's Los Angeles did its enormous storm drain project and it sort of helped with the flooding. In our current house, another roof removal and replacement brought a tropical storm in the 90's. LOL Last tropical storm of this magnitude was in 2011.
We used to have storms for 7 winters and dry for 7 winters for many years. Storms droughts have changed to a different pattern, but tropical storms have been around for centuries.
Not true! We have had many. Just not that often. I don't know why these storms are hyped so much by the news. We have had these storms for centuries, just not every year. With our recent droughts a lot of people don't remember that we have had them. Also, newcomers to the state (in the last 30-40 years) may not have experienced the flooding like we used to have before the storm drain system was installed about 30 years ago.
When I was a girl, we had some that were so bad the streets flooded into stores. In 1970 we had a series - I was taking the bus to work and had to take off my shoes to wade home through knee high water from the bus stop. Those late 60's early 70's storms came every year for abut 7 years. Had one in 77-78 that flooded over the LA River channel and caused an area to be closed and bus passengers to be air lifted out of the dam spill area in SFV. DD1 was an infant, and they closed that road just after we had gotten through. A couple years the rains were so hard that I had to pull the car over and wait for them to lighten up in order to get the kids home from school. Couldn't see out the windshield. Had one in the 80's at our old house - we pulled the roof off to reroof in August. Big mistake. Entire downstairs leaked and we had a 2-story house! In the late 80's Los Angeles did its enormous storm drain project and it sort of helped with the flooding. In our current house, another roof removal and replacement brought a tropical storm in the 90's. LOL Last tropical storm of this magnitude was in 2011.
We used to have storms for 7 winters and dry for 7 winters for many years. Storms droughts have changed to a different pattern, but tropical storms have been around for centuries.
