Fencing and shearing

The weather for the most part has been warmer than normal.  The ice has thawed off the creek and the dams.  Tammy was out looking at the creek by the house and saw some beaver activity.  They have attempted to dam several new places in the creek.

There are about four new spots that the beaver have decided to dam.  The big dam is about a quarter of a mile upstream.  We will have to get the state trapper in here to eliminate a few beaver.  There are not that many trees on our creek so we don't want to loose what few trees we have.

When Tammy was walking the creek taking pictures a few cows became curious and came to investigate.

We have been building a new fence to make a calving pasture a little smaller.  We plan to put in a mile of fence.  So we got a hydraulic post pounder that plugs into our Kubota.  So I sit in the Kubota and follow along while Tammy hands posts to Marshall who puts the pounder over the post and pulls the trigger while engage the hydraulic lever on Kubota.

In one afternoon we drove in about a half of mile of steel posts.  Now we are waiting for a day that the wind isn't blowing 45 MPH so we can put in the rest.  We don't start calving till April 15 so we have time to get the fence all in before we need it.  There seems to be a surprising amount of moisture in the ground for as dry as the top is.  We hit some moisture with every post hole.

Then we got a call to be ready to shear sheep in four days.  It rained some the day before shearing so we had to put the sheep in the barn to keep them dry.  The shearers arrived Monday morning and sheared hard all day as it was supposed to rain by afternoon.  We had lots of help.  Grandson Logan was very interested in the activity in the trailer.

There was five shearers and two wool handlers and sackers.  The day was kind of windy and cool.

I title this picture "The Shearing Boss".  He watched the activity for quite a long time.

The wool handlers were sacking some wool and different wools from what they were sacking they just piled until there was enough for a sack full.  The sacks in the stands are for belly wool and one for dirty wool that is all sacked when the job is done.

The rest of the help pushed sheep up the ramp so they could enter the shearing trailer.

The llama had to come and investigate what we were doing with his sheep.

Now we are finishing calving heifers and getting ready for baby lambs in the middle of April.  The cow herd will start calving here in the middle of April. We went to town and got 90 sacks of sawdust for bedding the lambing pens. When we get the fence built we will be ready for all to happen.