Monday, June 26, 2017

I won a major award!





Yes, it's true. I'm the proud recipient of the Worst Blogger of the Year award!
Sunflowers already!

Just kidding, I guess. I'm kicking myself a bit for missing a few days. I've been busy, but not that busy.
"Dude! What is this thing?"

On the busy front, I've been tearing out an old, busted corral in preparation for installing a new, hot corral.

This is a project which has been hovering near the top of the list for at least a dozen years but has always previously been shuffled into the "next year" stack.

Part of the reason is that the corral is so seldom used. It's really only at branding and weaning that we ask it to hold cattle, and then only for a couple of hours at most. It's been patched with steel posts and wire so often that essentially none of the original corral remains. It's become nothing but scar tissue.

It's been doing its job well enough -- which is to say just barely -- for the last few years, serving less as a holding pen and more as a (partially) fenced passageway. I decided to change all that by erasing the whole thing and starting over.

The first chore was to remove and sort the hodgepodge of barbed wire, which has grown to most resemble the Peleliu Airfield perimeter on September 15, 1944. Untangling, sorting, re-rolling the good wire and discarding the bad -- that's been a delightful chore. And I say that like I mean it.

That first part of a fencing  renovation is long on work, sucks up a lot of hours, and doesn't show much progress. But it's done now.

Today I'll rip all of the steel posts out, as well as the few remaining wooden posts. Then I'll lay out locations for new (replacement anyway) posts, get the holes bored, and hopefully get the posts tamped into the ground. That'll just leave panel and new wire installation. I'll re-use panels I already have, as well as several giant rolls of "sheep wire" which I collected during a previous fencing renovation some 20 years ago.

Well, best get to it...

8 comments:

  1. You were Navy, wouldn't that be a "lieutenant commander award"? JK

    Now I need to go take a nap, I'm exhausted just reading about what you're planning to do!

    (I did like the Peleliu airfield reference. But that history stuff is in my blood, no cure that I'm aware of, nor want.)

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    1. That's a good point. A hinge award...

      I'm deliriously happy that I can still potter around a bit.

      Sometimes I wonder if reading "Marine at War" at age 7 was a good idea. Then I realize it was a good idea.

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  2. "...several giant rolls of "sheep wire" which I collected during a previous fencing renovation some 20 years ago."

    Just like most, if not all, farmers/ranchers, you never throw anything away, because some day you'll need it again.

    Thanks for the post. Remember to keep hydrated. Breaks are good also, even if you don't smoke.

    Paul L. Quandt

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    1. I came really, really close to throwing that stuff away. Only a flat tire on a trailer prevented me from doing so. Not all of us farmers are wise.

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    2. "Not all of us farmers are wise." I will dispute that in your case. However, in this case, maybe you were just lucky. Again with the sayings, " Better to be lucky than good." In your case, IMHO, you are both.

      Paul

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  3. Oh, and about that missing a few days of posting, don't worry, we'll deduct it from your paycheck. ( lol ).

    Paul

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    1. Thanks Paul. I did stay hydrated. But I'm not down with taking breaks. It's so hard to get up again...

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  4. "But I'm not down with taking breaks. It's so hard to get up again..."

    Roger that, but standing still for 20 seconds doesn't count as a break.

    PLQ

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