Winter Cleaning and Fencing Prep

Winter cleaning around here is a lot like Spring cleaning inside, only colder :) One of the reasons I kinda look forward to Winter each year is I make about a thousand times more progress on cleaning up the overgrown, tangled spots and junk that has accumulated over the last 100 years. Honestly there has been so much stuff left out there in the pasture I am afraid to brush hog it yet until I have had a chance to totally clear and search it completely.

I really should have been doing this a month ago but as you know I had another large project thrown on me so I put off my traditional late Fall and early Winter cleaning for a bit. Today's target after feeding the sheep and splitting a load of firewood were three broken and crushed round bale feeders and a huge old metal water tank. Each had been run over and crushed by the idiot my Mother was attached to and of course just left out there to rust.

It seemed like pretty good conditions to do it today but two of the items (one hay feeder and the water tank) were still frozen so hard to the ground they might as well have been buried. I tried prying em up with the tractor but only managed to lift the front wheels off the ground. They didn't budge an inch. Oh well two of the four ain't a bad start. The bolts holding em together are so completely rusted I will never get them removed so later this week I will drag out the Sawzall and see if I can cut them into sections small enough to load up and take in for scrap.

This Winter cleaning is prep work for the fairly large fencing project I have on tap to start as soon as weather permits. I am planning on moving both ram paddocks to the East side of the barn for better protection from the wind and to free up an area I eventually plan on putting in an awning for parking all the tractor implements under and a concrete slab for an air compressor and sand blasting unit in the barn.

I also plan on fencing out about 3 acres from the horse pasture for the ewes and lambs which will then give them two 3 acre plots to graze on during the Spring and Summer plus a smaller back lot behind the barn. This way I can rotate them around.

It's a pretty ambitious fencing project for my typical one man show around here and may require me to scale back on the garden size this year.

Anyway it all starts with clearing the old junk out of the pasture so today I took the first step. I guess we will see if I can get this project finished before Spring comes around this year.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!