Fencing and venting

It didn't get quite as warm today as the weather forecasters had predicted. Our high was only 87 degrees. I didn't know that though, so instead of sleeping in to get 8 hours of sleep, I got up early planning in the afternoon to take a shower and sleep when it was hot.

I wanted to check my hayfield fences before I let the cattle in the field in a few days. Instead of working on the fences the day before letting the cattle in, I decided to work on them this morning when it was still cool.

I figured I would be done by noon. Wrong. First I checked for loose posts and along the way repaired broken barb wire along the road caused by the deer and broken barb wire to my south caused by the neighbor's horses when they tried to eat my pasture's grass as the four horses on the 5 acres have eaten all that pasture's grass to nothing. I also had some boards to re-nail to posts and each other.

I was done with these repairs by noon. I then had to add about 20 steel posts to the existing fence where old wood posts were rotted and loose. I also added u-shaped nails where they were missing from barb wire and posts.

I had done the road's fence and was kiddy-corner from Bob and Jan's house when they were outside. I ended up pulling the birch tree off their fence from where it had landed after snapping off during last Wednesday's storm. I also cut off the small branches so Jan could toss them into their trailer to haul to the dump. Then I took a break, drank some root beer, and chatted with Bob and Jan. So it was late afternoon by the time I finished repairing my fences.

While working on the fence I noticed some weeds and snowberry bushes making a comeback along the fences. That stuff never goes away completely. I sprayed a tank of herbicide along the fences and ditch. I had some herbicide left so I re-sprayed part of the NE pasture. I had sprayed the NE pasture twice already, but with the rains of the past week, dormant weeds when I sprayed last are now coming to life. It never ends... over and over I spray. Even behind the garage I found one snowberry bush growing. As much as I have chopped, dug, and sprayed over the years, no snowberry bush should be alive. And here it was.

I checked my pocket gopher traps. This was one of those days were they would fill the traps with dirt. Four out of six traps were this way and the other two traps were ignored. As I repaired the fences earlier in the day I stepped over mounds and mounds of dirt from pocket gophers at the other end of the field. I'll never get rid of these pests! Speaking of never getting rid of stuff... the goatsbeard (salsify) weeds are still going to seed. I hate looking at them!

Enough already! Go to seed and go away. You won, I'll never get rid of you even though I tried mightily.

At the end of the day I decided to pick the rest of my raspberries. Too late. They are all dried up. The 3 lb plastic margarine container full I had picked several days ago are all I got. 80% of my large raspberry crop has gone to waste.

My apricots are close to being ready to eat. In case something happens before I pick them I decided to eat a few before they are completely ripe. That way I can say I had some apricots from my tree.

So by the end of the day with a lack of sleep, and feeling like I am not getting things done around here, and as my zodiac sign is Cancer, I was in one of my Cancer moods.