Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Cattle jailbreak and pump

This morning when I went out to move my irrigation pipes I found two cows and three calves were in Wyatt's field.  The rest of my cattle were taking their siesta in my south pasture across the fence from the five cattle.  Donna handled the gate while I herded the five cattle down the fence line to the gate.  The cattle in the south pasture realized what was going on and raced the five cattle to the gate.  Donna had to hoop and holler to keep the herd from the gate while I herded the five cattle through it.  The separated cows and calves immediately found one another and the calves began drinking milk from their mothers.

After moving the irrigation pipes I went and looked for where the cattle had made their jailbreak.  I maintain a basic two strand barb wire fence on Wyatt's land south of the island. Tall grass pulls the fence down and deer break posts and wire.  Some of the cattle had found the broken spot in the fence and crossed from the island to Wyatt's land and then made their way through the thick trees up to his field.

I repaired the fence and added some dead tree branches to the fence.

After I fixed the fence where the cattle came through.

Since the cattle made a trail to this point, and the fence is puny, I added dead branches to the fence.

Eventually when I rebuild more of my fence I will free up 5.5 ft steel fence posts and I will build a better fence across Wyatt's property south of the island.


The irrigation pipes now cross my front yard.  Guess I won't be going anywhere soon.



Because I went on an all day hike on Tuesday I had the pump turned off after 24 hours of pumping water.  When it came time to restart the pump Donna came with to watch that I did it like she does.  I did.  The pump wouldn't pump water.  I tried again.  Failure.   Donna tried it doing pretty much what I had just done and the pump started pumping water.   Go figure.

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