Saturday morning I went out to let the horses out of the drylot. I knew that I needed to spend the weekend moving temporary fences around so that the horses could get into the new portion of the pasture. We'd divided the pasture two years ago (temporary fencing) and that seemed to really help. I didn't do it last year and I noticed the difference.
So I opened the gate and couple of horses moseyed out only for me to discover that someone had pulled the fence down and they started going into the "new" pasture. I wasn't mad but slightly irritated. Irritated more at myself because they don't touch that fence unless there's no more grass to enjoy. And the electric fence wasn't on. It keeps getting unplugged and I have no idea why. I had thought maybe someone was unplugging it but I don't think whoever is, is human. I'm guessing a mouse keeps running by and unplugs it. I'll have to figure out a better setup to keep the electric fencer plugged in. But it's probably a good thing that it wasn't on as the fence was down in multiple places.
So off I went to put up fencing at the bottom of the hill. I didn't want them into the very bottom part of the pasture because it's still wet from the rains we received a few weeks ago (we are not in a drought but everywhere else is). So our pasture has standing water...ergo the annoying mosquitoes.
But I want to keep the horses out of the bottom pasture so they'll have something in August when we go into a drought, because it'll happen.
So I rushed back to get poly posts and electric fence and set to work. Two hours later, I was almost done.
Almost because I had no way to hook up the electric. I decided that I didn't want to try and figure out how to go up and over the gate in the drylot so I'd hook up to the permanent electric on the perimeter of the pasture. I knew the north and east portions were still there (the horses had pulled the electric off on the west (and I think the south) and it's disappeared somewhere).
So I hooked everything up and started walking the fence. That's when it dawned on me that I haven't had electric on the pasture in years. It's been at least four or five years since we used electric and it shows. We'd cut down scrub trees growing in the fence line but they've since come back.
So after getting a thorn jammed into my thumb and scraping up my palm, I opted to have Mike start cutting down trees. Actually, it was the two scrub trees that I couldn't break that was the final straw. There was simply no way I could use the electric fence with those trees growing up and into the fence.
So Mike went out in the afternoon to work on cutting down trees. As with everything else, the chainsaw hadn't been used in probably three years so it was in need of some TLC. I'm not sure that it actually got any but at least it got used! All these projects that we need to get back to and it requires a little bit of extra work because everything has sat for almost three years.
Why three years? My daughter will be two next month so nothing has really been accomplished over those past two years and the year I was pregnant (or what seemed like a year), nothing was accomplished either. So three years the place has fallen into disrepair. So now we are fixing it and I'm excited to see the improvements!
I did have good company while I was out fencing. Farley and Penny were with me almost the entire time. Well, until I moved away from the stagnant water. Then Farely decided to go back up to the house and find some shade. Unfortunately temps were rising into the 90s so I had to work fast. Mike go the brunt of the heat while cutting down trees.
But now the horses are in the new part of the pasture. I'll have to get pics. I'd gone out last night but they'd already come up for the evening. Maybe tonight. With trying to get kids to bed, it's a bit tricky to get back outside before the mosquitoes come and the horses come up to the barn for the night. But if that's my only problem, I won't complain.
