The neighbors' horses have a habit of leaning over the barbed-wire fence and eating on our side of the fence. This is the nature of horses; they all do it, whether well-fed or starving. Barbed wire doesn't deter them in the least. They'll push the fence down as far as possible and stretch out their neck as far as they can reach, eating all the grass they can get. If a barb happens to rip their skin open, they don't even let on that they feel pain. Last summer, to keep our fence from being totally torn down, we put an electric wire along it in a place where the horses would get a shock whether they reached over or through the three strands of barbed wire. All it took was one shock apiece and they stopped. Late in summer the weeds overtook the electric fence, shorting it out. Cliff figured the horses wouldn't know the difference, and they didn't, at first. Eventually, though, they tried it again and found out it wasn't going to hurt them. I told Cliff yesterday that we'd better get the electric fence working again.
The trouble is, those dead weeds will all have to be taken out or they'll short out the fence, just like last summer. After Cliff went to work, I went out and started taking care of the weeds. It's tiring work, let me tell you.
On the neighbor's side of the fence no grass grows, only weeds. I do believe they feed their horses though; in fact, from the looks of them, they overfeed them.
This is one of them, last time he got out and ended up in our yard. Again.
Here's what the pasture on our side of the fence looks like. Plenty of grass.
You can see how far the horses have reached over and cropped the grass on our side. I'd say about three feet. The aggravating thing about this is that the neighbors take no responsibility. They won't help with the fence. If we had to put new fence up, we'd have all the labor and expense. Let's face it, they won't even fix their fence well enough to keep their horses at home; they're sure not worried about this fence. And you have to wonder why they keep the horses; they never ride them. Oh well, such is life in Dogpatch. I got about a tenth of the weeds pulled and stomped down today; I'll do more tomorrow.
We've been using a huge borrowed pet taxi for Iris to sleep in at night; it's been beside our bed, taking up an incredible amount of room. Iris had no complaints about it; if I told her to go to bed and the door of the taxi was almost closed, she'd stick her nose in and open the door, squeezing through. We also have a too-small pet taxi that we used to transport Sadie in the car; Iris is the same size Sadie was, so that one is too small for her to use as a bed, although it works fine for taking her someplace in the car. I've been watching garage sales for a just-right-sized pet taxi Iris can comfortably sleep in; I certainly didn't intend to pay the price for a new one. Cliff was putting some stuff in a storage shed in the pasture and noticed a pet carrier back in the shadows. "Did you know there's a dog crate down there that's the size you want?" Neither of us have any memory of acquiring that thing, but sure enough, there it was. The metal door is rusty, and I had to clean out lots of wasp nests. It isn't the prettiest thing I ever brought into the house; but after some cleanup, I figure it will serve Iris just fine until we find a better one at a garage sale.
This picture shows the difference between the sizes of the two pet carriers.
On another note, this morning I plugged the electric fencer in and it was dead as a doornail. Where it usually reads "14.4" or something in that range, it read "0.0". We had not been using it for a couple of weeks because the removal of the old trailer house also entailed the removal of the source of electricity to our barn. Yesterday the barn was re-wired to our box. Although I was fairly confident that "0.0" meant there was a worse problem than a few weeds on the wire, I decided to eliminate that possibility while Cliff was asleep. That way he can go on to other possible problems.
There definitely were plenty of weeds on the electric fence. However, after I had removed the weeks, the fencer still reads "0.0". This electric fence runs along our side of the barbed wire fence between us and the neighbor to the west; his horses, lacking decent pasture, eat over the fence and lean on it so hard that they'd eventually push it down. We string the electric fence along it in such a way that whether they eat between the barbed wire strands or over the top, they'll get a shock.
Our cows have a selection of any variety of grass or legumes they might want; so where did I find them eating this morning? In the idle field Cliff intends to plant to grass this fall, where nothing but weeds can be found at the present time. In this picture, Bonnie has a mouthful of the vine my daddy always called "Creeping Jenny". Weeds! My cows like weeds!
Speaking of weeds and vines, here is the trumpet vine I've been trying to get established for two years; it suffered a serious setback in the spring of 2009 when a nephew mowed it; I then marked it with an electric fencepost to keep such a tragedy from happening again. This is a plant many people have warned me about, saying it's invasive. So I put it in a place where it should remain harmless, and yet I can sit on my porch and watch when the hummingbirds are feasting on its blossoms. I have yet to see a bloom, but I'm sure I will eventually. I recently put a "butterfly bush" in my flowerbed; I understand that's another plant that can sometimes be invasive. I'm not worried; my husband loves to kill plants, and if it becomes a problem, I'll turn him loose on it.
Little What's-his-name is running to mom for comfort, in this picture. He just discovered the electric fence.
We have the little lot, which is right outside our front door. That's where we put him and his mom at first.Then we propped the blue gate open a little so they can go on out in the bigger lot if they want.
This is the bigger lot, where we keep my horse Blue since he foundered. Cliff and his sister have their garden in the big lot, surrounded by electric fence.
There are several reasons I can't let Bonnie and What's-his-name out into the pasture with the other cows. First of all, I have to watch the calf closely for signs of scours (diarrhea). He's getting more very rich milk than he actually needs, and sometimes this can cause problems in a young calf. It isn't a huge problem as long as it's caught early; I have all the stuff on hand to correct the situation, should it happen.
Also, we have some areas of the pasture surrounded by electric fence. A young calf needs to be trained to this, and the wire around the garden in the big lot is a perfect training tool. A little calf, when he first encounters the shock of an electric fence, won't always know to back up and get away from it; often he'll just go under until it quits hurting. Soon-to-be-Clyde (I think) disappeared today, and I found him napping in the sweet corn. I unhooked the electric fence and pushed him back out into the wide-open spaces with his mom. He turned around and went right back in about as soon as I hooked it back up, getting shocked and bawling pitifully as he forced his way under the wire.
I think he's almost figured it out now; I saw him jump back when he got too close to the wire, later on.
Don't feel too sorry for the calf.
Yesterday I was push-mowing my own garden, which is electric-fenced because our neighbors can't keep their horses home. I had unplugged the fence and was mowing away fearlessly. I backed up into the fence, my butt connected, and I got the shock of my life. How could this be? I had just unplugged it! I turned off the mower and stomped over to the lean-to on Cliff's shop and saw the cord dangling, unplugged; but it was swinging as though it had just been disconnected. Going on in, there was Cliff looking all apologetic. "I knew when I heard the lawn mower shut off, I was in trouble," he said.
Hmph. I think he's still evening up the score, since I kept him from the Wing Ding.
My astilbe roots arrived by mail, so I planted those. This is my first experience with this lovely flower, which I'd never heard of until this past winter. I'm going to have to stop opening any and all mail I get from Breck's; every time I look at their flowers and bulbs, I'm tempted to buy something else. And I've never really been that much on growing flowers!
While I was puttering in the flowerbed, I noticed one of the neighbors' horses was loose, and thought how glad I was that we put electric fence around our garden, because ever time he's gotten out he invariably walks over the garden; I do have a lot of things up and growing now. While that thought was still being formed, the horse came trotting briskly onto our property till he was between Cliff's shop and the electric fence, a space perhaps eight feet in width. I could see him gathering energy to bound across the garden, but just in time, he saw the wire. He knew what it was because we also have to put electric fence along the top of our barbed wire fence between us and the neighbors, or their horses tear the fence down trying to get some grass (because there's precious little on their side). It's up to us to do all this maintenance for their horses, because Lord knows, they aren't going to lift a finger. Anyhow, he saw the wire, jumped back almost against Cliff's shop, suddenly decided it was a trap, and turned and went running home at racehorse speed.
It made my day. Our efforts have been rewarded.
We never seem to be able to get enough straw at an affordable price. Seems like small square bales run $4 each these days. Cliff has watched an ad on Craigslist for some big straw bales for quite a while. The guy first asked $30 a bale; then $25, and finally $20. Cliff decided that sounded good. In case you've never see big bales like this, I took a quick video of the farmer loading them onto the trailer. We brought home five bales I'll be able to mulch my tomatoes this year! We'll use it for bedding in the horse stall, too.
