01/31/2009 Saturday. Wood chips in the cottage garden

Extremely foggy this morning but lovely and sunny in the afternoon. There were a few clouds in the sky but it was another dry day.

I can't believe this is the last day of January 2009 already. Where has the time gone?

This was a pretty productive day. Enrique, Juan and I dumped well- composted chicken manure on the revised beds near the hog panel arbor. It looks pretty nice now. Enrique and I picked up rocks from the stall near the barn. I got the first load with the ATV and Enrique got the second load using the tractor bucket. We then used those stones to make the outline of a path from the arbor to the set of stepping stones I put in in 2006.

We filled that in with wood chips from the large pile I got last year. It already looks so much better in that area. Nothing like a layer of chicken manure to make an area look good. It also creates very fertile garden beds. I was pleased to make great progress on that project.

I had Enrique and Juan pick up the loose hi-tensile fence wire and tie it up into small bundles that we then tied with binding twine. I bundled a bunch of the small bundles into one large one and held that together with more binding twine. I hung the bundles of wire on a nail pounded into the wall. It was lovely to have all these pieces of often loose wire off the ground and out of the way.

We moved two bales of hay into the Hereford's collapsible feeder after we cleaned out the yucky hay in the bottom and moved the loose hay still in the feeder into the cleaned out area. Then we put the new hay on top of the loose hay.

I prefer to clean up the old mucky hay whenever possible since it makes it much easier to move the collapsible feeder out to its unfolded position. As the cows push the feeder towards the gate that prevents the hay from coming out the back they tend to poop on the area just uncovered, thus the cleanout when I push the feeder back out to its uncollapsed position.

I have eleven round bales left and have decimated the square bales over the past two months. The guys took three more bales plus four bags of Country Livestock over to the green barn for the goats and calf. It's nice when I can have someone else do the heavy lifting. I do move the bags of feed into the garbage pails for feeding.

I had Enrique and Juan take the three black pallets that I will eventually use as sheep housing over to the back of the equipment shed to store them temporarily. I need one more pallet. I have the three sides but now need the top.

Pretty soon now I'll be moving the calf over to the stall where I kept the Dexter steer. I always have to screw up my courage to castrate a bull calf. I used to be able to castrate in my younger days but I'm getting too tender hearted in my old age.

I also had the guys move the four hog panels (criminy, they're $41.99 + tax each) that I had delivered last night over to the green barn. I think my chicken and duck tractor will be 6 feet by somewhat less than 10 feet since the panels are 16 feet long. I lose about half a foot to the cutting. I may cover the top with wire and wire the sides at the bottom together to keep them from splaying out.

Before they left the guys picked up or cut down enough branches to fill the ATV trailer to overflowing from the area to the east of the green barn. By then I was so tired I ended up snoozing in my chair in the living room while they continued to work.

A pretty good day - a cleaned out barn, fencing wire picked up and stored, my arbor and its beds have been manured and the path covered with wood chips, feed and hay have been moved to the green barn for next week's feeding, and the apple tree that needed drastic surgery has been pruned.

Charles suggested curry for dinner. So, between the two of us I pulled together, potatoes, chicken, frozen broccoli and onions and cooked them in a store bought curry paste. I served the curry over plain white rice.