Finishing the Fence!!

Well it isn't completely done, but the fence is 99% finished!

Yesterday we finished the last remaining side of the perimeter fence.

Today I worked on the rest of the aisle fence.

We also hung the gate yesterday, but I still need to wire-tie some chicken wire to the gate.

I got half of the aisle fence attached to the posts, and will do the rest tomorrow.

We also worked on evicting our groundhog resident from the shed.

And we finished the shed pen and make-shift gate.

There is still another couple hours worth of work to do tomorrow morning, but the llamas are going to christen their new pasture by the afternoon!  Can't wait!

Hanging Fence!!

We're finally hanging fence!

I set up the wires for the braces a few days ago (well, all but one), so today we set out to start hanging the fence.

First we had to build our fence stretcher.  It is 2 pieces of 2x4, cut to 4.5'.  We drilled 2 holes and added 2 bolts.  The fence gets sandwiched between the pieces of wood, and the nuts on the bolts tightened as much as possible.

Next we had to strip the vertical wires from the end of the fence roll, and tie the end of the fence around the gate post.  Just stripping those wires took an hour!

Then we unrolled the fence along the fence row, and attached the stretcher.  We wrapped a chain around the top and bottom of the stretcher, and attached a come-along between the chain and the tractor.  We had a lot of extra slack in the fence, so we backed the tractor up before tightening with the come-along.

Once the fence was tight enough, we stapled it at the corner.  Tomorrow we'll stretch the next length of fence (and splice the next roll in between).

We didn't get much done in all reality, but hopefully it will go faster in the future!

Putting in Fence!

Well I guess it's the week for updates!

We've had a lot of rain recently, so the fence progress has been slow, but we're getting there!

I posted a few weeks ago about pounding the metal t-posts for the aisle from the shed to the pasture.

The aisle in the distance.

After that was done we started putting in the corner post brace assemblies.  Due to the aisle, our pasture has 4 true corners (3 posts with 2 braces each) and 2 half-braces (2 posts and 1 brace each).  All of these posts must be set in cement.

Supplies for setting corner posts.

I first marked where I wanted the corners to be (and measured each side so we wouldn't run out of fence!)

Flag where the corner post will be set.

What a beautiful pasture!

Then we started digging the holes with the auger on the PTO of the tractor.  Of course we had the same luck as last year...breaking a shear bolt on the first post!  Actually we broke 3 shear bolts in the first 4 posts, but (knock on wood!) haven't broken any since then!

First broken shear bolt!

Pulling the auger out of the hole after the shear bolt broke.

When we set the posts in concrete, we pour 40lbs of dry mix into the hole, followed by about 2-3 gallons of water.  Then it gets mixed with a t-post and allowed to settle.  The rest of the hole is filled in with dirt (and rocks).

Concrete and water in the hole.

First finished corner post!

We set the final corner post yesterday, and started on the wood line posts today.  Every 4th post will be wood, the rest are metal t-posts.  We have 5 of the 9 wood posts set, and hope the do the rest Saturday.  In the meantime I'll be busy pounding t-posts!

Drilling for the third line post (the one in the background is loose, not set!).

Drilling for the fourth line post.

Pasture Rehabilitation Progress

It has been a few weeks since I let the llamas out on their old pasture.  So far I'm pretty happy with how the rehabilitation of the pasture has been going.  With a few small exceptions, most of the new grass that I seeded has begun to grow, and I'm slowly working on getting rid of the weeds (mostly burdock).

Pasture in mid-spring, before grazing.

A little bit later in the spring, after I mowed but still before being grazed.

And as you can see, the llamas are VERY happy about being out in their pasture!

T, Duque, and Kara out grazing.

The added bonus is that their dry lot area is starting to recover.  I still have a lot of straw to remove, but it has been raining cats and dogs this week!

Grass is growing back in the dry lot!

The pasture after a few weeks of grazing and some more mowing.

The llamas aren't great about eating weeds in general, but I've discovered that they love these berry bushes!  I'm not quite sure what kind of berries they are, probably rasp/black berries.  I chopped down all the old stalks last year, but of course they came back.  Within days the llamas had eaten every single leaf off the new plants.  I don't hold out much hope that the plants will survive, and that's just fine with me!  Unfortunately they won't eat burdock, so I'll have to continue to mow and pull those by hand.

Stripped berry plants!

Unfortunately it looks like the llamas are going to have to go back in their dry lot next week.  They're not grazing the pasture very evenly, and the areas closest to the barn are getting too short for comfort.  I can't afford to let any of those grass plants die!  I'll probably return to letting the llamas graze in their portable pen (either in or around the garden fence), and give them some freshly mown grass in addition to their hay.  They won't be happy, but they'll survive!  Hopefully it will start to dry out so we can get back to working on their new pasture!

Starting on the New Pasture!

I apologize for not posting this last night...first time I've forgotten since I re-invented the blog!

Anyway, we finally started on the new pasture this week!  Granted we haven't gotten a ton done, but we are 3/4 of the way done with the aisle from the shed to the pasture.  We're out of t-posts though, so next up is a trip to Tractor Supply!

Pounding the posts.

Our stick-chewing helper.

The southern edge of the pasture (a gate will go where the orange flag is).

Happy llamas grazing in their current pasture.

Planning For A New Pasture

I'm sure I've mentioned it at some point, we're planning to build a new pasture this summer!  Now that the garden is started, it is time to do less planning and more building.

The first pasture we built ended up too small...the available space was pretty confined next to the barn, but we made it as big as we could.

The second time around we're going big...about 2.5 times bigger!  We're planning a 150' x 350' pasture, which makes it about 1.2 acres.

This pasture will be for spring/summer/fall use only, as there isn't any water or electricity nearby.  We were originally planning on building a 3-sided shed to use for shelter, but in an effort to save time and money we're going to use part of the equipment shed.

Luckily the shed doesn't need much work to make it livable for the lamas.  We removed the junk (mostly wood boards and barbed wire rolls, but there was also an old lawn mower!) last week, so now we just have to fix the boards on one wall and close up the other half (with cattle panels to make a wall and a gate).  The front will be left open for the lamas to come and go.  The floor is dirt and gravel with some tiny wood shavings mixed in, so I'm thinking about getting some ag lime to cover it...need to price that out.

Due to space issues, the pasture is going to be separated from the shed by a long aisle.  The aisle will come out of the barn, past the apple tree, and out into the pasture.

And this is where the pasture is going.  I bush-hogged it last week (though it needs it done again already!), and measured to lay flags for the corners.  We're hoping to start setting the corner posts this weekend, followed by the wood line posts and then the metal t-posts.  Then we'll hang the fence and be done!

I hope we get the new fence in quick...the llamas are really sick of being stuck in their dry lot, and I'm sick of them looking like scare-crows!

Building the Compost Pile

It seems like this entire summer/fall has been spent bouncing around from one project to another!  First it was the really important stuff like fencing and the barn, and now we've moved on to smaller secondary projects.  Of those, one of the most important was getting the compost pile constructed.

For those of you who don't know, I clean up the llama manure on a daily basis (or every 2-3 days).  This is mostly for parasite management, but it also allows me to harvest the manure for use in the gardens.  For the first month or so after the llamas moved in, I was dumping the llama manure around the established fruit trees in our small orchard.  Llama (and alpaca) manure has the wonderful quality that it can be used fresh- it doesn't have enough nitrogen to "burn" plants so it can be applied directly.  Composting is good (especially when there is hay or grass mixed in with the manure), but not always necessary.  It quickly became evident though that there weren't enough trees to fertilize, so we got to work building the permanent compost pile in the fenced garden area.

My compost-building companion, Abby.

In addition to using the manure/compost in our gardens here on the farm, I would also like to sell some starting next year.  So we definitely needed a permanent place for the compost to "brew".  I had seen plans on Pinterest for compost bins built with t-posts and wood pallets- this seemed like the easiest way to go, and I had already found a place to buy pallets pretty cheap.  I chose to put the compost pile in the corner of our fenced garden.  That way it would be out of the way, protected from the dogs, but still easily accessible with the tractor (so I can turn the pile with the front-loader).  Originally I wanted to build the pile so it was 2 pallets wide and 2 pallets deep (it would be 3-sided).  This was wide enough for the front-loader to easily turn the manure.  However, after a month of adding manure to the pile this looked much too small, so we expanded it another pallet wider.  It currently only has 2 sides…I'm waiting to see how it works this winter to decide if I want to add the 3rd side in the spring.

Pallets ready for use.

First we had to set some t-posts.  I measured the spacing for the t-posts by using the pallets, so they would fit snugly.  Then my husband set the posts in the ground with a manual post driver.

Metal t-post after being set.

Next we lifted each pallet over its t-post, and set it in place.  I later went back with some 14-gauge high-tensile fence wire and wired the edges of the pallets together for extra stability.

One side of the compost pile wired together.

The corner wired together.

And that's it!  It was really easy to build, and it looks to be very functional.  Only time will tell how well the pallets manage to keep the manure/compost contained.

The finished compost pile (version 1).  It now has an extra pallet on both sides.

Pasture Management

Slowly but surely, I'm working on rehabilitating the pasture.  I should've done more of the work BEFORE the llamas got here, but hindsight is always 20-20.  And as it turns out, the llamas are pretty good at pasture management too!

The llamas enjoying the bottom part of the pasture.

As I've mentioned before, I did quite a bit of mowing (with the push mower I might add!) before the llamas got here.  Most of the pasture is too tight or hilly to mow with the bush-hog, and the riding lawn mower is worthless!  So I push mowed and raked about 75% of the pasture, hoping to get rid of some of the weeds and encourage the grass to grow.

For the most part, the mowing worked great.  The tall burdock plants are gone (although there are new ones growing in their place!), and the grass is growing back in.  I couldn't mow everywhere though, as there are two large spots in the pasture that are covered in small boulders/large rocks, and I didn't want to break the mower!  So the weeds in those spots were at least chest high, if not higher.  Luckily the llamas seem to LOVE these weeds, and they are slowly taking care of them!  T prefers to wade through the weeds to find the ones he likes, while Kara buries her head!  It is quite funny to watch.

The llamas are slowly working their way through the tall weeds.

Another big aspect of the pasture rehabilitation is filling in holes and gaps in the fence.  In the past two days we've moved about 4 loads of dirt, using it to fill in some ground hog holes and one big gap in the fence.  I could use another 10 or so loads, but we'll get there eventually...

One of the gaps in the fence we are trying to fill.  There is also probably some barb-wire fence buried underneath too.

I've also been planting a TON of grass seed!  Since the pasture was about 50% covered in burdock plants, there are now a lot of bare spots (where the burdock was shading out the grass).  I fenced off the biggest bare spot (in the bottom part of the pasture), and in the few short weeks since the weeds were cut there has been a lot of new grass growing.  It is already about 6" tall!  Unfortunately there is still a big bare spot right along the fenceline, so I roughed it up with a rake and spread grass seed.  Of course we then got about 2" of rain, so I re-planted about half of what I had done!  This time I covered the seed with a light layer of hay, to protect from driving rain and birds.  Hopefully we will get some rain in the next few weeks so the seeds can start to grow!

The big bare spot in the bottom part of the pasture, now seeded and covered with hay.

Another big area up by the barn was also covered in burdock, and now that those are gone I planted seed there as well.  That spot is close enough to the barn that I can water it on a regular basis, so I expect it to start growing sooner than the other spots.  Unfortunately I didn't have enough temporary fence posts to block this spot off as well, so I hope that the llamas don't trample the new seedlings or eat them too early!

Another bare spot in the pasture, also re-seeded.  This one is up at the top, by the silos and barn.

 And last but not least, I've been doing weed management.  As I mentioned above, even though the big burdock stems had been cut down, there were still new plants growing in.  And the tiny burdocks were producing seeds already!  (The llamas are COVERED in burrs, if you were wondering...)  I tried twice to spray the burdock plants with a safe herbicide mixture (vinegar, salt, and dish soap), with varying results.  I decided that it wasn't working well enough, so I spent two afternoons digging/pulling the larger burdock plants by hand.  Technically it worked (the plants are gone after all!), but there are still a lot of tiny burdock plants, so today I decided to mow about half of the pasture.  I'm planning to mow it every 2-3 weeks, and hopefully the grass can out-compete the weeds and take over!  There are also two low-growing weeds in the same area of the pasture, and hopefully the grass will out-compete those as well.

One side of the pasture which is covered in weeds.

Two of the weeds in that spot of the pasture.

I'll try to remember to report back in a few weeks and give an update on how the pasture is doing.  Unfortunately there isn't much time left in the growing season, so I expect (and hope!) that the real difference will be seen next spring.

Mr. T getting caught in the temporary fence.