Friday

Spent my day running between hanging gates and support boards on the posts I put in last week and delivering lambs. Back and forth.

We had another brace of triplets. This time it was the Ewe with the HUGE utter from the post I did a couple days ago.

Her utter is so huge she cannot even properly nurse her new lambs and of course she has to pop out three of them. This is her last year as a breeding ewe. She will officially join the Invalid/Retirement flock next year. Truth is she is getting up there in years anyway and I shouldn't have bred her this year but at the time I had forgot about her giant udder problem. I had to hold her while my mother milked her and then we bottle fed the lambs to be sure they are getting enough. Eventually the lambs will figure out they have to go lower to get their meals but this is too much work so I decreed her breeding days are over.

Besides that udder is pure torture on her and she has been a good ewe over the years. She deserves a break.

I went and hung the 16 foot gate....

Then heard another ewe go into labor so it was back into the barn. This time it was an easy single lamb birth. We had two of them this year so far which is unusual as well but to be expected as many of the ewes are getting older and slowing down some.

Apparently I miss measured the walk in gate space or the post hole drill moved more than I thought because now the opening is too narrow for a standard four foot gate along the side of the out building. I am going to have to custom make one or pull the post. I think I will make a gate though as waiting for the posts to settle is the main factor slowing me down on this fence project.

I am doing these gate posts a bit differently this time and not cutting a wedge out of the posts for the support boards. I am using boards on one side cut flush and then going to use cattle panels cut to size for the other side. This will allow rigid support on both sides and save me from making short wire runs. Besides as I replace the old rotting patched fences I have an abundance of left over cattle panels that are damaged I need to use up.

After this gate hanging is finished I need to go back into the woods and cut some more posts and buy some T-posts to get one side of the East pasture done then I can take down the temporary electric fence run, brush hog it out and clean out the eyesore wooden fence that is falling down to get ready for the next phase of the gate corral.

The gate corral is kinda where several pastures and paddocks will all come together and will end up being it's own little paddock to act as redundancy and so I can safely move the sheep between sections without exposing them to an open escape route. It's going to be expensive though with three 16' gates and at least two 8' gates plus at least one walk in gate.

I might make it by May.... but I doubt it. Probably going to be late-May at the earliest now. Maybe even June before this part of the plan comes together. If I survive that long.....

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!!