Cows and fencing and water, oh my

Our bovines are settling in nicely. We’ve gotten into a routine, and they quickly learned to come to the “Bossy” call to get a bit of sweet COB (corn/oats/barley) each evening.

Here’s Maggie, peeking over the edge of the deck.

Mignon nursing off her mama Filet.

Right now they’re restricted to the area below the house. This is an area of less than 1.5 acres, so we’ve been closely monitoring how much grass they have left and supplementing them with dry hay in the barn.

We have a larger pasture, but can’t release the cows into it until it’s properly fenced. That’s a task that has been consuming us for a couple weeks now. Most of the hard work has fallen on Don; not only because I was gone for 10 days to visit my parents, but also because I work my online job at least three days a week (sometimes more, if covering for absent coworkers), during which times I’m positively glued to the computer.

Additionally, with this crippling heat wave the western portion of the nation has been experiencing, we’re limited to working in the very early mornings. This week, I was at last able to give Don some proper assistance in getting longer stretches of fencing tied up.

We’re using up the field fence we bought several years ago, purchased because we knew this day would come. We have plenty of rolls, and we’re glad we bought it when we did since prices are significantly higher now.

A roll fits perfectly into the tractor bucket.

We needed two rolls (they’re 330 feet each) for one of our fence lines, up a steep enough slope that we didn’t want to tote them by hand (each roll weighs 144 lbs.). We were also armed with gloves, extra T-posts, wire, nippers, a come-along, and all the other accouterments necessary to pull a fence tight and wire it in place.

We started at the top of the hill and unrolled the fence downward.

Earlier, while I was down in California, Don was weedwhacking along the fence line when he discovered this brave pheasant, setting on eggs on our neighbor’s side of the fence. She hasn’t moved off the nest, despite us working mere inches from her. Pheasant hens set for 23 days, and we have no idea how close the eggs are to hatching.

Well hidden, isn’t she?

She watched me with her gimlet eye, but hardly blinked.

A day or two later, when passing the same spot, I noticed the hen was gone (doubtless off getting something to eat). Six eggs, that’s her clutch.

Once the fence was unrolled, we loosely looped it over the T-posts to get it off the ground.

Then, section by section, Don ratcheted the fencing tight and I wired the fence to the T-posts. We’ve been working very early in the morning to beat the worst of the heat, which is one of the reasons the process is going as slow as it is.

(Bonus photo: I was trying to focus on an insect that had landed on a stem of grass when suddenly a hover fly flew into my camera focus, so I snapped a pic. Not the clearest, but kinda cool.)

Meanwhile, another chore that needed doing was cleaning out the cows’ water tank.

It had become gooky (is that a word?) and needed a good scrubbing.

Siphoning it out was a slow process and took about an hour.

Finally it was drained enough that I could tip the rest of the water out.

After that, it was just an easy application of elbow grease.

I rinsed everything, then reattached the float valve and started filling the tank.

Filet wandered up about this time to see what I was up to. She got the benefits of fresh, cool water to drink. It must have tasted like ambrosia after a warm day.

Yeah, they’re extra work. Yeah, fencing is a pain in the patookus. But I’m glad to have cows again.