Mostly photos

Snow had her pups on 2/6/13 5 altogether, 4 boys 1 girl.




 
 


 
 
We had more chicks arrive in the mail last weekend- Golden Laced, Silver Laced, and Blue Laced Red Wyandottes and a freebie Dominique.

I hope to get some regular meat bird chicks in a few months. The pan friers take entirely too long to grow out to eating size, not that we had many last year to butcher after the foxes, so I think we're going to go with the cornish cross that take about 6-8 weeks to reach butchering age or something like a Red Ranger broiler. Given that they take so little time however, I'll order them when the weather warms up and they can be in the shop in a brooder. Right now the brooder is shoved in the hallway bathtub and it's a real pain to shimmy out being wedged so snugly in there. Although, sometime this week they can probably go down to the basement to the back room where it's about 62-65 consistently. Right now they are pretty cheap to raise though being upstairs, all I have on them is a brooder lamp and a regular old 70 watt bulb. Moving them to the shop even with a 250 brooder bulb would probably not be enough to keep them warm right now with our temps and moving them downstairs may require a hotter bulb. May as well keep them upstairs where I know they are toasty, even if it means listening to peeping while ya pee! Any idea what they are saying? "Food, food, water, water, food, food, water, water." That's the extent of their vocabulary until they become old enough to lay and then it's "food, food, water, water, I just laid an egg!". The simple life, right?

The glass on the woodstove suffered a bit of a mishap last week and was broken. Ordering a new piece from a company in Wa. saved us about $160 as opposed to ordering it in town. With shipping it was still $80 and although it only took 5 days to get here, those 5 days had me sick and tired of that furnace!

We're still growing fodder for the goats, pigs and chickens down in the basement. We're still not growing as much as I'd like to. I'm at about 2 trays total a day, I'd like to be up to 6 but it's working very well so far and I am pleased with the results. We're not on an automatic watering system as of yet so I haul water down everyday. It doesn't require too much, about 3 gallons 2 times a day. The valve is there to install a hose from the pressure tank, we just haven't gotten to it yet and with the sump down there, I just dump the water straight to that though eventually once I find a tub that fits well in the shelving until, Jeremiah will just plumb a pipe from the tub to the sump.

Jeremiah's been gone 3 weekends in a row, last weekend being the first full weekend he was here. He's been trying to come up with ways for the students to raise money for Skills so if they go to Nationals again this year, they would have to come up with little to no money. Being winter and all (is that what this is?), we figured firewood may be a worthy sale and being as how we have LOTS of wood that would just go to waste if left to sit and rot, we had 3 students come over last weekend to help split and stack. Our wood pile was looking rather pathetic really, which isn't entirely a bad thing. It allowed us to use up the wood that would not have been "FIFO" (first in, first out) because we stack from back to front. We should stack side to side but anyway, the log splitter worked really well and we got about 2 truck loads split and stacked and enough rounds of hedge pulled out of the woods to give them at least 1.5 good size truck loads full, it just needs to be split. It's well seasoned as it is and ready to burn and that hedge, if you're not aware, burns LONG and HOT! It's our favorite for night time fires and there's always really nice coals in the morning.

All of this seems very redundant and boring to us, day to day living, you know?

I mentioned around Thanksgiving we installed an invisible fence for the dogs since their desire to wander had become increasingly irritating and we'd had enough and the choice was find a solution (not that we hadn't been trying) or re-home them. That fence has worked wonders and we've not had an escapee since they day we hooked it up and had the settings set correctly. Don't tell King, but he doesn't even wear a collar, we never did end up getting a second. Snow wears the one full time but I am fairly sure I could take it off of her or unplug the unit and both of them would still be where they are supposed to be in the morning. Though, I am not going to chance it for one, or teach them them to test it, though Snow won't go far now at least for a couple months with her new pups.

With the dogs staying put, there was no need for the back yard fence to remain and Lord knows those panels are expensive enough so we went ahead and took the panels down in the back yard. There was a locust tree that has been dying and needed to come out so last weekend Jeremiah felled that with the panels gone so it wouldn't hit it. I think there were 7 full panels that came off the fence and a few shorter pieces. With spring around the corner, I want to get a green house up to get some seeds started. I've seen several ideas using cattle panels bent into a hoop shape and covered in thick plastic. It was the intent last year to get one underway and we bought the plastic but it never came to fruition, this year however, I am bound and determined to get it done and next weekend is the date! The front and back will be plywood and it'll be sort of framed up with lumber. It's a little hard to explain but I'll take photos as we go along. It need not be elaborate but it needs to be something! Every season puts us a little bit farther ahead.

I fully do not expect to have a summer of average rain fall again and running the sprinkler non-stop so the plants won't die just isn't working. We have several blue plastic food grade barrels, one of them with a spigot already on it. My plan is, since the main garden sits on a hill, is to put the barrel in the highest corner and run drip irrigation lines from it to the rows. Filling the bucket with the hose is easy and it may need to be done once a day, maybe less? Jeremiah put in that water spigot in for me last summer near the garden & pig pen and it's made life so much easier! Little steps =).

I occasionally let the pigs out to graze in the orchard and they have done a good job rooting up a bunch of bermuda for me. We had picked another location for the garden originally but the bermuda was to thick and too much of a hassle to try to get up so we moved it to the hill. However, if I can keep the chickens off of the place the pigs have tilled up once I plant, I'd like to put in row crops of corn and other tasty treats for a "pig and goat" garden. I planted some oats last fall but I don't think we got enough rain for them to germinate before the turkeys came through but I'll try again in about a month or two here and see if we can't harvest a little hay. It's more of an experiment than anything.

We've had 4 goat kids born so far. One of the buck kids went to his new home at a week old as a bottle baby. Iris fell ill during her last 2 weeks of pregnancy. How's she's still here, I don't know but I swear that goat is determined to get as close to dying as possible and rebound. She drives me nuts, truly. She's not making a lot of milk and to feed a buck kid who would probably end up in the freezer when I don't have another goat in milk and the freezer supply quickly dwindling, it was better to send him off early.  And a nice family from near the Ok. border was going to use him as a home milking herd breeder so it was win win. The little girl is a sweet thing and has nowhere near the CBB (Crappy Bottle Baby) personality that the full time CBB's have. I am sure that has a lot to do with the fact she may still get some milk from Iris and she's left full time with her, or maybe it's just her. Who knows. She was sick at about a week old. I am still not entirely sure what from but this weather we've been having reeks havoc with everyone in regard to respiratory issues! The cold again hot again, single digit nights above freezing nights just throws everyone off. I had wool and cotton goat coats but ended up tweaking my pattern a bit and changing fabrics and came up with these dandies...

That's Dawn's doe kid, by the way. I call her Roxie. She's full of it but super sweet, very outgoing. I think we're going to keep her. She has spots, they are dark right now but they will lighten and Dawn has such a nice udder, I am glad we kept her. Andy is the kid's sire and it's a bit of a line breeding on the kids but I think they turned out really nice and Andy has thrown so few doe kids so far that I'd really like to keep what he does throw to see how they turn out. His kids are always really growthy and mostly spotted. His doe kid from FD last year grew out so well we bred her to freshen as a yearling. We'll see what the udder looks like on that one! His buck kids put real nice meat on quickly and I've debated selling him as he can be such a pain in my rear in rut but he is herd king and when all the bucks run together, I can understand he wants the others to know who's boss. For now, I think we'll keep him around.

Iris' doe kid, we call her Mischief, is on the mend, though has suffered a bit of a setback growth-wise but she'll catch up, I'm sure. She gets 3 bottles a day right now and is almost 4 weeks old. She's not as jumpety as the others but I did pump her full of stuff to save her, most of which was immune support. She'll probably be like her mama, determined not to die no matter the circumstances!

I have had people calling from Mo. and Ok. and Kansas of course for milkers and I just don't know that I can fill the requests this year for everyone asking. Most of the does have not even kidded yet but we did, or I feel we did anyway, such a herd cut last summer and fall when hay was still high that what we've got is a lot of what I'd like to keep! Though, I do have a few does in mind so we'll see.

Other than that, Jeremiah is finishing up writing all of his test questions for the state revamp that he volunteered for. He has one more meeting to attend, probably in Denver again. His students did pretty well in Mo. those 2 weekends he was gone for that. I don't think he's attending the Tulsa competition this year. The only student who wants to go is being taken by his parents and really, Jeremiah needs time off from traveling.

We've had some major issues with his blood sugar being entirely too high the past 3 weeks.  I was unaware he was not taking his evening medication while we were gone to Ca. as he was afraid of his blood sugar dropping while driving. For a while his BS was in the 400 range and normal for him is about 120. He saw the dr. a couple weeks ago and had to take his BS 5 times a day for about 10 days. Toward the end I could recite word for word what he'd say about his "poor fingers" each time he got his meter out. It's slowly dropping and we're slowly getting it back under control, it takes a while for the medication to do its work but the dr. still wasn't pleased it wasn't coming down fast enough so she put him on something in addition to his regular but that was just a couple of days ago and we've not picked it up and just the past 2 BS readings have been almost "normal" for him (and he had low BS at work the other day when all he ate for lunch was a salad and skipped his soup) so I'm almost reluctant to have him take the new medication seeing as how it just looks like his body needed more time than "usual" to readjust (and just because that run on sentence wasn't long enough, I thought I'd add in that it was a very long winded sentence, wasn't it?). Who knows though, it has literally been like ALL over the place and there's been no rhyme nor reason.

I am sure the stress and constant go go go we've been experiencing the past 2 months has not helped matters. We really need to get things under control. We've been fortunate enough that he is not insulin dependent and I'd like to keep it that way, for as long as possible anyway.

It has made us more aware of the ever constant battle that is diabetes...and health, for that matter. We've been fortunate that he is not worse. Our biggest issue is not crappy food, it's portion control! People who don't love food scare me. All kidding aside, we're determined to get more cardio activity because despite the grunt work we do around here, the cardio is what we need. So, here's to getting our heart rates up and keeping them up for it to do any good...unfortunately, the military was not kind to Jeremiah's knees and shins so we'll have to figure out something for him as even walking is kind of high impact. As for me, walking my happy butt around the pastures is sufficient! It's getting out and doing it...same song and dance, I know. Jeremiah wants to know why I bother to clean stalls by hand when we've got the tractor...I figure it's at least a work out...it's just not exactly the kind I need. But with warmer weather on the horizon (not that it hasn't been on again off again warm), I'll make it happen...somehow.

Well, I guess this turned in to more than just a photo post. Like I said, all pretty mundane to us. We've talked about putting up a new milk barn. The school's building construction will build us a custom shed if we come up with the materials first. I don't know if that will get done this school year as we really don't have a spot for it yet.The lean tos are still in good condition but do need some work and since the southern lean-to does not have access to any of the pastures, I think we'll disassemble it and put the milk barn there.

The assessors just came by here recently and with our nice hike in taxes (due to a stupid school bond), our taxes went up. I think we'll just keep the same footprint and call it a day so as not to see our taxes jump any higher! There is already electricity run to that shelter, no water but that's easy enough! It's nice for the bucks in the winter to be able to run a de-icer for their water but those things get expensive running them all the time and the past 2 winters have not really been bad enough to need them much anyway. Anyway, it's not a big deal to run electricity and water to the northern shelter (which is accessible from the western pasture), it's just a matter of doing it. However, that lean-to needs more work than the southern one and I'd like to cut the pen down some anyway so we may as well sort of reconfigure it and maybe, finally, finish out the 3rd pen we started when we put up the high tensile fencing and either turn that into additional buck area or make it pig area.

I like the pigs a lot I just don't know that we'll keep them here for breeding. Granted, finding them at a decent price was not entirely easy but keeping them is not entirely cheap either with the drought! I'd like to see if maybe we can try to pasture them over the spring and summer in the back corner of the woods and see how that goes. The fencing is electric and they have been trained to it. It would require fencing off two sides to form a grid square but that's easy enough by just running some t-posts or fiberglass poles and aluminum wire. They take so little care and there would be plenty to eat out there. Trucking water would be required but that's not a big deal every couple of days with a big enough tank and the glorified lawn tractor. Or heck, 2 buckets morning and evening and I get a good work out! It just takes time, not something we always have a lot of but I am sure we can make something work!

I started talking about the garden and our plans this year but didn't finish my train of thought. The drip irrigation lines will be run to the individual rows and each row will be covered with straw, hopefully that will cut down on water waste and time by avoiding having to go out there and change the sprinkler location every couple of hours. We were loosing a lot of potential growing room too with where the sprinkler wasn't hitting and watering plain dirt is a waste. Live and learn what works! I should not have to do a bit of tilling thanks to the pigs! They have tilled that entire garden right into the corner...saves me from having to run the 'tiller and ya can't beat that. It would be nice to move the pigs and use their pen for growing corn, but it's not something that has to be done right away, if at all this year.

Well, I suppose it's time to get going. The kids have a birthday party to go to and then it's back home to work around here. We may get some rain later today...no snow since New Years though we did get a real nice thunder storm a couple days ago...didn't drop a whole lot of rain but any is better than none. It was really foggy yesterday morning and below freezing so all the moisture froze on the trees. Even when I went in to town about noon it was still very cold and all the trees looked like they were coated in glass. Kinda pretty.

Hope all is well for everyone. Have a great weekend.

Fleeting

Enjoying the last few fleeting days of warmth before closing up and calling it a day winter.

Ding Dong Dawn

I try to take the girls out to 'the woods' daily. They don't seem to want to go on their own this time of year. 'The woods' are in the NE corner of the property and pretty far out so I can't say I blame them. This time of year looks a little spooky in there. They will go out to the closer mulberry and cottonwood trees to see if any new leaves have fallen. As for grass, there isn't much in the way of that except this cool weather green stuff that's popped up in the last couple weeks. They also like to eat the ceder tree needles this time of year.



Winter's a comin' that's for sure but we have had quite a few very nice 'above average' (temperature wise) days recently. I remember last year, it seemed like Halloween day was the first real cool day and after that, it was all down hill. Two days ago we had a pretty good storm roll through that dropped quite a bit of rain. There wasn't much snow to speak of but it was there. I'd be happier with freezing rain as oppose to snow.

We're better prepared this year, live and learn right? The tarps we put up on the barn (See: 'Winterizing'e a few posts below), I think, are going to work out great! We've yet to get them up on each of the boy's buildings but that'll either be this weekend or next.



Jeremiah is off to St Louis Nov. 16th for a conference. Today he has the college instructor over to certify (in welding) some kids.

The living room is, for the most part complete except for a new front door that will come a bit later...you know, once we buy it and have time to install it =). I'd like to get the hallway walls, ceiling and trim painted before Thanksgiving, but I won't hope for too much. I do need to purchase those thermal curtains though for much of the house. I am even considering putting up a curtain rod over the back door (inside) and installing those thermal curtains for the winter. Man, when that cold wind blows, it just makes no difference if the door is shut tight or not. A curtain over the door may look a bit strange but hey, if it works I don't care!

So, I guess that's about all that's happening in our little world. About half of the does are bred. Kidding starts mid-March and I have every hope it will be decent weather next year! Everyone is looking fit and fine and I recently trimmed and wormed all 3 bucks all by myself. I'm quite proud of that fact. Jeremiah, I am sure, is quite happy as it's really not the most pleasant of jobs. Out of rut isn't such and issue, in rut you're 100% likely to smell vile and have things on your clothing you'd rather not think about.

 I don't know if I mentioned it or not but the 3 boys had all been in a pen together and that just wasn't working. A few of the does were all cycling together and that was just sending the boys into an absolute spastic state. Jeremiah and I rehabbed one of the north pens for them and things have calmed down considerably. The back fence of the north shelter was still that old field fencing. We took that down and installed cattle panels and a walk through gate for access to the new buck pasture that we sectioned off with high tensile electric last spring. The shelter itself also needed a little help that required a few boards to be installed but other than that, it's good to go and secure now.

Poor Storm is by himself but believe me, he's better off. Much of the time he can see the girls but he does get upset when the leave out to the pasture. Once I am sure all the girls are settled (bred), I may move all the boys back into the same pen and see how things go.

Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring

The pond in all 4 seasons as we've watched it change. You'd think this was a favorite spot but it just so happens I've taken photos in the exact same spots during all 4 seasons...and still have done nothing about the Cottonwood we cut down (that can be seen in the in the left hand side of the first photo). Too much wood, too little time. Oh well, we'll get to it someday.

Summer 2010 just after we moved in. And they weren't kidding, it is deep!

Fall 2010

Winter 2010/2011

Spring 2011

Gardening

I know it's been a long since I last posted. We've been so incredibly busy I've barely had time to sit down to think, let alone write about what I'm thinking.

That said, we got the garden in- corn, beans, tomatoes, peppers, squash of all types, onions (green and white), flowers in the "kids garden", carrots, etc. We've yet to plant any of the vines...just haven't had time and I was waiting on a big pile of waste hay and manure to be moved. (hich has been now that a friend let us borrow a bobcat (see right side of photo).

The garden is in a great location. It gets morning and mid-day sun and when the sun is at the peak of scorching, it'll get late afternoon and evening shade from trees on the west side.

I can now plant some pumpkins, watermelon, melons, cukes and potatoes. We're watering right now by a  sprinkler  with two 100' hoses stretched from the main barn, through the bucks pen and into the garden. The garden is in the area the goats used to be able to graze in/on but we've moved the pen fence north by about 100' so we've got a great big area for gardening. For now, it'll get watered with the hose but when we get time (HA HA HA HA!), we'll be trenching for water lines out to the new pastures we fenced, to the bucks pen (I currently bucket water to them which sounds like a big pain in the rear but it's not really that bad, but a spigot would be nice for sure!), and then to the garden and orchard.

Since there isn't any water to the orchard now, we cannot plant trees this year. We have enough last minute projects keeping us crazy and to add fruit trees to the line up would just be asking for trouble. Eventually we'd like to put in a windmill and new well to water the garden. For 1st water we wouldn't have to go very deep (20-30' or so because the water table's somewhat high and we've got an underground stream running right through the property to the pond.) First water would be suitable for irrigation...plans for "some day"

Fencing

Welp, after all the buildup, we managed to take down approximately 3200' (NOT EVEN HALF) of 4 strand smooth twisted wire and in its place strung 5 strand high tensile to create 2 usable pastures and an orchard!

Last week brought some lovely temps to work outside in and we maximized our time, that's for sure!

Stringing the first line...


Beginning brace (entrance to the orchard)...


Cross fence...


And there it is!

I need beer

It's Spring Break. Friday afternoon we spent the afternoon and evening fence supply shopping. In true fashion, we've been to town twice now and will have to make a few other trips yet.

We've decided to play it safe and do about a 520' pasture on the east side of the property instead of going hog wild and trying the whole thing. To be honest, taking down the fencing proved to be more work than I imagined but yesterday, in the lovely 70 degree sun, we were able to remove approximately 1,000 feet of 4 strand twisted wire. Our neighbor came over to remove and cut back some trees on his side and he used his tractor to remove quite a few rotten posts and incorrectly place (for our application) t posts.

Because we don't have an auger and because we don't want to dig post holes by hand, we're going with a t post and "Wedge loc" application. Our neighbor is skeptical but I've done about as much research as a person can do on the Wedge Loc system and it all seems sound. The only cynical information is from people who haven't used it themselves and the positives are from people who have used it. We've put up double "H" brace corner braces in about 15 minutes including getting the posts pounded in, try doing that with wood. While the whole system, quite honestly, is actually more expensive than traditional wood, the ease of use far outweighs the cost.

I've got some photos of a completed brace I'll show you later on.

We wanted to get to stringing today but odd jobs took a bunch of time. Tomorrow AM we'll get started stringing the fence line and providing nothing else comes up, I should have a completed pasture by noon.  The neighbor's skeptical about that too. High tensile is not typical so explaining its ease of application is a bit difficult but once it's up, I'll win 'em over.

The grass is greening up here. We had rain on Saturday but it's been in the 80's yesterday and today...too hot in fact but I'll take it over negatives and snow.

About the title... Kansas is a dry state on Sundays. We learned the hard way that if you run out of beer on Saturday night, you had better make it to the liquor store/grocery store before midnight if you're going to need beer on Sunday (or have a really generous neighbor). While we didn't run out of beer on Saturday and while we're not huge beer drinkers, when a person wants a beer, they're sure nice to have around! We were at Walmart a few weeks ago on a Sunday. We drug a 12 pack up to the front to be asked/told by the cashier, "You know I can't sell you this right?". Jeremiah's response was, "Yeah, we knew that but we just like dragging beer through the whole store!". He didn't really say it out loud. Anyway, so yeah, no liquor on Sundays.

Course, Sunday is when we started on the fence and I cannot tell you how many times Jeremiah wished he had a beer! I felt like hitting him with a rock...or a t post. Finally, he conned the neighbor into getting us a couple nice cold ones from his fridge. He was happy to oblige and personally I felt like Andy Dufresne and his prison buddies in Shawshank Redemption out there drinking ice cold beer after a hard day's work.

He really does love them!!!

The first brace goes in!

Weekly recap

We've been busy here! Week before last the temps were so nice reaching the 70's and even setting a record one or two days. We spent all last weekend in the yard. Had two of Jeremiah's students over to help us chop wood and clear brush. There is so much and it's all a bit overwhelming when you look at it all. For so many years, as the trees broke and/or died, they were either left in the woods or if on the main paths/areas, pushed into piles in the woods to decompose. It's real hard to see the piles in the woods when it's spring, summer and part of fall because of the grass and the briers and bushes but come late fall and winter, it just looks, well, wild. Natural, but wild.

There's a lot of good wood in there to burn it just needs to be hauled out, cut and split. Things are different, as I am sure you know, when you work full time. Or, when Jeremiah works full time anyway. Weekends are super busy and it's still not really light enough yet to do anythings in the evenings and most of the time it's too cold anyway, so there ya go.

This morning was chilly and we had a lot of moisture last night so the trees are coated in a layer of ice which is actually really pretty to look at...from afar that is, as in, inside where it's warm. Photos wouldn't show the ice though so no point in taking one. Yesterday was frigid.

The children and I went, for the first time, to the Hutch. Library and wow, what a great place! I wish I had taken them sooner. Rachel got a library card. Unfortunately it's on the west side of town (we live on the east side) so going over there would mean a special trip unless I need to go to the Hutch. Post Office (which is also over there) but I think we'll be making another trip this week. It's just something we'll have to make a point to do, perhaps pick them up from school instead of them taking the bus and go.

Jeremiah's truck's registration in Ca. (no we haven't gotten the plates changed over yet!) is due this month and so I'll need to run over to the court house to pay the $12 to get plates and tags. I'm not totally sure how they figure out registration, but it has something to do with your property taxes. Go figure! But actually the truck will be considered "antique" so we get off paying a heck of a lot less. My car was substantially more but still less than Ca. so I can life with it. Our car insurance, by the way, is half here than what it was in Ca. There's no surprise.

The baby goats are doing just fine. They jump and play and sleep and eat. What else is there? One of them is quite friendly, he's the larger of the two (the darker one with brown spots). He's also got the most potential (as far as I'm concerned) as breeding quality. The whole, "I worked so hard to save them and they won't go on my dinner plate" thing has blown over. The fact the smaller one won't play pet goat would make it easier for me to send him to the auction but nothing will be decided until mid-summer. They were disbudded over a week ago, that's always a fun chore but they were back to jumping around shortly after everything was said and done.

We've got lots of plans in the works. I've put off the notion of putting up a panel green house this Spring. While it wouldn't take very long to do, I think putting together some cold frame boxes with either old windows or corrigated clear plastic for lids would be faster and I don't need a whole lot of room to start seedlings in for us.

Our biggest chore is coming at the end of March when we start putting in our new property fencing. Jeremiah is not looking forward to it but I really am. The task seems daunting to him I'm sure, but everything I've read tells me it's a pretty quick job, in comparison that is. If I haven't mentioned before what we're putting in, I'll explain now. We're installing High Tensile Wire. It's 12.5 gauge wire, which when pulled taught, is VERY springy. It will be 5-6 wires tall (approx. 48" tall) and "hot" (electrified). I've done months and months of research on this stuff. It's cheap, lasts longer than any other fencing and has the lowest maintenance and is the easiest to put up. What more could we ask for?

Why is it cheap to put up? Not only is it inexpensive to purchase (as low as .02 a foot for the wire), but it requires a lot less posts than traditional fencing- wire, wood, woven or welded wire. On flat terrain you can get away with posts spaced as far as 100'. It is recommended that "battens" be installed, which is nothing more than a plastic/pvc pipe with groves in it to accept the wires to keep them spaced apart between the posts driven into the ground. These pipes (battens) are not driven into the ground, the are usually only as long as the measurement from top to bottom wire. While most of our terrain is not flat- there are rolling hills-I am hoping we can get away with using wooden posts only on the most substantial hills and t posts for the rest. We will need "insulators" which are pieces that fit onto the post that hold the wires in place- though some people use large staples.

Unlike woven or welded wire, high tensile is not tightly secured directly to the posts (although I have heard that some do say not to tightly secure this type either so that the fence gives, but there isn't nearly as much give in these types of fencing as high tensile). The high tensile can be stapled but the staples are not to be driven tightly to the wire because the wires are supposed to "float". If stapled, the staples do nothing more than acting like the "batten" keeping the wires where you want them vertically, if that makes sense.

The beautiful thing about this fencing is that it is so springy. The fence line intersects a lot of trees. We get severe ice storms and if the piles of wood and broken limbs in the woods are any indication of how much actually brakes and falls, we'd be forever repairing any other type of fencing. As I've stated, high tensile is super springy with as little as 1300 lbs. of holding power for every wire! Meaning, if a limb (or tree) were to fall on the wire, once it's removed, the wire will spring back into place and not be damaged a bit. Posts may need to be replaced but where there are long stretches of flat land, providing the post is somewhat away from the fallen limb, it will have no ill affects which is the reason they recommend not putting in more posts than you need and why the wire "floats" within the staples or insulators- less is more in this type of fencing under most circumstances.

As far as fixing the fence in the event a post is broken or bent, the wires just need to be removed from the post (which is where insulators would come in handier than staples). Unlike, say, woven or welded wire, high tensile wires can be spliced (using a crimper). Well, no,  take that bac. Woven and welded wire can be spliced but it's quite a bit more effort to do so and re-stretching the fence is more labor intensive. If the high tensile wires are not damaged, you just hook them back up to the post(s) and re tighten via the inline strainer.

The inline strainer is connected to two ends of the high tensile wire, tightened to a certain PSI and holds it, maybe you've seen them on barbed wire. Until I started researching high tensile I never knew what the round thing with teeth connected to the wire actually was. It does the same thing that the ratchet strap strainer does- tightens up the fence/strap ! So, you loosen the wire by the strainer, make your fix and re-tighten. In barbed wire applications, over time the wire will start to sag so you take your handy dandy strainer tool. give it a couple clicks and you fence is tight again. Woven or welded wire is a whole lotta hooplah more than that to fix.

Should I be a spokeswoman for high tensile? We'll see. As far as predator control, that's a big one for us! I've seen coyotes jump a 5 foot fence from a stand still. I know we have them, I know they are many. I know an adult goat is probably not on the menu of a coyote unless they are seriously hungry, even when hunting as a pack, which could happen, but baby goats are a fairly easy catch. We do plan to get an LGD (livestock guardian dog) but until then, and in addition to, an electrified fence is also going to be a huge deterrent. I still haven't made a final decision on wire spacing but it's going to be something like 6" off the ground, 8" from that, 10" from that and then 12" and 12" making a total of 48". As far as deer deterrent, that's not a huge concern for me. It is some as deer can carry parasites that will harm goats. I'd just assume keep them off the property and I know they have one major "highway" through the east portion of our property that they could just as easily walk along the fence line on the outside of the property line (and they do on some occasions). Believe me, we wouldn't be affecting a major portion of their grazing grounds by making ours off limits.  I have read that a 48" high fence, normally, wouldn't deter deer at all, but a 48" electrified fence may be another story. However, that does bring up the garden issue, more on that later though in another post. 

So, we're both sold on the high tensile. Our main pen that we can see from the house will all be re-fenced with cattle panels. Jeremiah calls it the viewing area :o). It will not be electrified and my plan is to have the goats come up to the main pan at night.

I've done a lot of reading up on electric fencing too and while high tensile and electric, to me, goes hand in hand, no everyone electrifies their high tensile. On a side note, some cattle around here are kept in with a single strand of electric wire! Can you believe that? You'll be driving along and see a herd of cattle out on an old corn field and you'd swear there isn't a thing in the world keeping them in. Upon further inspection you'll see 2 foot high rebar sticking up out of the ground every 50' to 100' and a nearly invisible wire connecting them. I almost cannot believe it. That won't work with goats and even high tensile wire fence, unless it's electrified (and I am certain of this from previous experience with un-electrified gates and fences, a goat can shimmy under),  they won't stay in. So, we'll alternate hot and ground wires, have substantial -minimum 8' foot long- galvanized rods pounded deep into the ground along the fence line. The herd goat(s) will need to be trained to the fence and Jeremiah said that me being the one to throw them into it may break that trust relationship we have between each other, so I told him he could do it instead, ha ha ha ha ha! But in all seriousness, the fence is probably more of a psychological barrier than a psychical one.

All in all, while fencing approx. 11 acres seems like a large task, the hardest part will be deciding where to place posts and then setting them. I am hoping t posts can be used for much of it so we don't have to dig holes by hand (as I am not going out to buy a $500+ engine powered auger or the rental fee on a post pounder) to set as few as 10 posts when I know darn well, after fencing the majority of the property will probably the last fencing we do on much of it. As I said, the posts, unless in a hilly area, should be few and far between And, to a certain extent, pounding t posts is a pretty easy chore. After the posts are set, it's nothing more than rolling* out some wire, attaching it around the corners and poles and tightening it with the strainers.

While it's not a day job, the amount of work required will be nowhere near as labor intensive as other types and I expect to have the job done in just 2 days or so (not including any posts we may have to set in concrete). I have to call the supplier companies and see if t posts are recommended for slightly hilly terrain. If they'll be okay, we'll save a ton on those as there are already so many holding up the deteriorating twisted wire fence now. Our corner posts are still in great shape and that is the heart of any good fence. Once the wire is strung between the two posts, it's tightened a bit, line posts are then installed, the wires are attached by either insulators or staples (on wooden posts) and then the wires are tightened to about 200-250 lbs. of pressure.

*High tensile is rolled tightly on a a reel, and from what I understand, needs to be unrolled in a spinning jenny which Jeremiah can make at the shop.

At any rate, I'll continue this conversation at a later time. As for the high tensile, I believe I've talked about that enough to explain what we're doing for anyone who's interested. We'll take pictures as we go as I now there are some folks who could benefits from a real world how to. I know I'd be happy to see some blog posts of "real" people installing the stuff and not just hearing about how their uncle installed 15 miles of it in a day by himself.

Later I'll share later my research on good deer/rodent deterrent fencing that I plan to do in the garden and orchard.