Fencing Project: Day 7

WE DID IT !!!  We have completed our fencing project.  I have been wanting to get this done for soooo long and now it is completed.  I want to say, a big THANK YOU to my son, Brian, friend, Dave and my husband, Lloyd for spending their time helping me.  I could have never done this by myself.  I know the next time I drive down the road and see a stretch of fence, new or old that was run I will appreciate all the work that I know was put into getting it up.  Most people don't think twice about something like this, but there is a lot of 'now how' that goes into a project like this.

I still have work to do on the interior fencing, but I can work on that at a more leisurely pace. 
I temporarily tied off the new area of pasture so I can gradually introduce grass back into their diet, I loaded them up on hay prior to turning them out into what I call a paddock.  Once they've eaten this down I plan to let them graze the interior fenced area a couple of days before letting them out into the larger pasture.

I have hopes of cleaner fleeces too.....this will be another post as we will be working on coats for some of the sheep.

Hope everyone enjoys a day of rest today....I know I certainly will.
Take Care,

Fencing project: Day 6

No picture today.....I was too tired to walk back there again..  We had trouble of course, fussing around the next corner, between a tree root that we had to use a chain saw on and a good dip in the ground that we had to add a T-post in the line just to help with the angle as we worked through the corner.

After several hours spent getting around the corner, we did manage to get the rest of the roll of wire unrolled and stretched just beyond this corner.  Crimping another roll of wire together and temporarily tying it upright to the posts.  I had to go to the hardware and buy new bolts, washers and nuts for the woven wire stretcher as we had one fail and had to cut it off....small price to pay as we wouldn't have been able to do this job without it.  We stopped at this point calling it a day......now I feel whipped!

The next stretch, should go well and hopefully we will make the final stretch in our next workday....finishing the job........I hope.
Stay tunned.....

Fencing Project: Day 5

This was the first stretch of wire that we ran, it went pretty good.

We stretched the wire around this corner.....we were told that, "yeah, you can stretch it around the corner".
Well, we tried and that first line post that you see after the corner?  Well we snapped it off like a toothpick!
Thank goodness my son was here to help us on his day off of work.  Brian and friend, Dave came up with the idea to drill a hole into what remained of the post in the ground, screw into it a large aggressive wood screw and use my new post hole remover tool to pry it out of the hole.  It pulled right out!  I was so glad, cause I thought we would be done with our plan of finishing this stretch of wire.  Thank goodness we had a few posts left over and pounded a new one into the hole.  We were able to finish this run to the next corner.

This was a final stretch of wire to run today, we stopped at the far corner and called it a day.  We spent about 10 hours on this fence today.  I am thinking the we may get the final two stretches run tomorrow.
Check back later for updates.....it would be great to get the sheep out in the pasture this weekend!

Fencing project: Day 4

We had a short day of working, due to rain most of the morning....but still we were able to finishing
getting all the inline strainers attached to all the corner posts.  This is a far off picture of one of the interior
corners.  We will actually have two separate interior areas.  A smaller enclosure around the barn, maybe the ram area.  Then another area just to the outside of this as a rotational area.

This corner and the one at the other end of the trees are part of the interior fence line, also the second rotational area I mentioned above.  Now I can try and get all those t-posts aligned and stretched in between. 
Now we are ready to stretch fence whoo hoo!!
Since we are putting this up ourselves and have never put this type of fence up, we wanted to do it correct.
So I've been following the "how to" instructions on www.staytuff.com  as this is the fencing I am using.  The high tensile wire knot was confusing in the written instruction with still pictures.  So I did find a you tube video, which I've added to my blog in a posting today.  Quite simple when you can watch someone else do it. 

The girls are tired of being cooped up in the barn, they go to the fence and stare at the grass....trying to will it to them, or think how can I get out there!!
With great ambitions I hope to have them in grass by this weekend!!!
.....that's all for today, we'll see how much we get done for tomorrow's post.
...stay tuned...

Tying Off High Tensile Wire

Fencing project: Day 3

Well....I think this is day 3 of working on the fence.  I thought I better number the posts, since we will be on this project for a while.  We really need the weather to cooperate with us, we have gotten so much rain the ground is completely saturated.  We have not tried to work in the lower corners as we would be buried to the top of our boots in mud.  So we are working on the high ground.  We have completed putting in all the brace posts.....yesterday....YEAH!!!

We have finished putting up the inline strainers on two corners and one end (the wire with a ratchet) and will continually 'ratchet' them as the weather changes to keep the corners tight.  We still have three corners and the other end to do yet.....and of course while the man was here to pound the posts in, we had some extra posts.  So I had him put in three extra corners for my interior fence.  The interior fence is some thing I can work on later, my main focus right now is to get the perimeter fence up so I can get the sheep out in the field. 
Hope to have an update tomorrow for what we do today!

Taking on our biggest project

We have been planning for some time to get our land fenced in for the sheep and it is finally becoming a reality.  We researched who had the supplies we needed and went with Straight A's, just outside of Minerva, Ohio http://www.ranchcity.com/ .  We found they had everything we needed, plus advice on 'how to'  when you are putting up fencing yourself and have never done it before.

Last week we had a local man come and pound the posts into the ground that was a sight to see.  He was actually pretty fast.  Once we had an understanding of what to do we were able to keep ahead of him.  It took six hours to get all the posts into the ground.  Thank goodness we've had alot of rain, as this made it easy to get across the top of the hill, which is very hard shale ground.

This week I hope to get the woven wire up, as I have taken a week off of work and with the help of our 'great friend' Dave, we are getting alot done.

 The largest part of the fence will run through the woods, which I didn't take a picture of and will probably be the most difficult part.  But, this will be sooooo nice when it is done, I can't wait!

The roll of woven wire in the pic. was part of the old fencing, which I will still use as part of an interior fence.  It is nice to have a couple of separate fenced areas so the sheep can be moved around to rotate into the pastures, which means leaving the grass grow in one area for a while without letting the sheep in so it can grow, then moving them back into that area and out of another area to let it re-grow.

~hence, it is called 'rotational graising'.

That's all for today, plan to post our progress as we take on our biggest project.







Three ram lambs available

These our the first of more ram lambs that I need to post for sale.  The two in the back are siblings, back left #94 (lamb tag) scurred katmoget, light fawn in color, very nice fleece.  Back right #94 horned katmoget, horns are yet to be determined on this guy, but a fine fleece he is.  In the front lamb tag # 113, fleece is a little darker in coloration that the other two, he is scurred.
THESE LAMBS ARE WEANED AND READY TO GO!!

Lamb # 94, born March 21, 2014.  When I look over all of the ram lambs that I have available, my eye keeps coming back to this guy.  He is scurred, has a very light colored face and a soft fleece, very type tail and a wooly patch on his forehead.  This lamb is weaned and ready to go!!
His Dam is Whistlestop 1113  http://www.mtn-niche.net/NASSA/nassa_pedigree.php?pregno=S33987
His Sire is Sheltering Pines Grand Luxe http://www.mtn-niche.net/NASSA/nassa_pedigree.php?pregno=S34244

#94 Typey tail.

#94 This is a fine typey ram that would help develope anyones fleeces into finer, softer spun yarns.
Dams Micron:  Mic.Ave 25.8, SD 3.5, CV13.6, CEM 6.0, CF 92.0
Sires Micron:  Misc Ave 24.9, SD 6.2, CV16.3, CEM 7.1, CF 92.4

This is Lamb tag # 95, twin to the above ram, born March 21, 2014  he also have a very nice fleece, very clearly marked pattern and a wool patch on his forehead.  See details above regarding Dam and Sire.  This ram has a darker katmoget pattern, he has full horns, at this time we will still need to keep watching the horns to know if they will be 'good'. 

This is Lamb tag # 113 Katmoget ram lamb slightly darker in fleece than the two above.  He has scurs and a nice little patch of wool on his forehead.  He was born April 6, 2014 he also have a very nice fleece.
He is weaned and ready to go. 
His Dam is Autum:  http://www.mtn-niche.net/NASSA/nassa_pedigree.php?pregno=S29349
His Sire is Shelterpine Grand Luxe http://www.mtn-niche.net/NASSA/nassa_pedigree.php?pregno=S34244

Dam Micron:  Autum: Mic ave 27.1, SD 5.2, CV 19.3, CEM 9.0 CF 74.5
Sire Micron:  Grand Luxe Mic ave 24.9, SD 4.1, CV 16.3, CEM 7.1 CF 92.4

This is all for today, I have more to post, stop back and look for updates.
You can also view my March & April posts to see most of the lambs as they were born. I do have two spotted ram lambs that can be seen in previous posts and will be added to this list soon.

Thanks for looking!

If interested contact by number given in Ad or link to me through the email address above.

Great Lakes Fiber Show

The 19th Annual Great Lakes Fiber Show has come to an end.  I would call it a great turn out and you couldn't beat the weather....another awesome year.
I wanted to say, "Thank You" to all who purchased fleeces from my sheep, this helps to feed them and this year I will be able to get some coats and try them.  This will help to keep the fleeces much cleaner.
THANK YOU !!!!

The fiber show was well represented with over 80 fleeces.  I didn't enter any of mine to be shown this year, but my friend Dave L. is and took 1st place in the fine fleece, natural color class with his ram 'Luxor'.
AND this same fleece took Champion Fleece, over all fleeces.  What a honor! 

The Algonquin Spinner and Weavers Guild, which I am a member of helped again with the fleece judging, as far as helping to get fleeces entered by the exhibitors and being the scribe for the judge and then the sales after the judging.  We all really enjoyed our time spent.

Soon I will begin to post pictures of ram lambs that I have for sale.  We have some really nice rams this year as we have two years under the management of breeding for fine fleeces and are seeing the change quickly from where we started in our breeding program.

Enjoy!