It was definitely a Monday here at Happy Ass.  And ol’ Happy caused me some problems at evening chores.  But first, “oh my aching muscles!”

We are at a crunch-time with the fencing and pasture prep for fall seeding.  The goal is that we remove all the old fencing and have it cleaned up for the fencing crew to come in and build the new fence.  We need to have that done asap in preparation for chopping, disking, and seeding of the new grass.  We are probably trying to accomplish too much at the same time, but it should, hopefully, lead to a beautiful new pasture next spring.

Here’s the deal … pig-farmer is on vacation a business conference in New Orleans.  Which leaves my puny arms to do the grunt-work.  Friday, Dakota (youngest son) helped me pick up steel posts, wooden posts, rolls of fencing and barbed wire.  We didn’t get nearly all of it done.  It was a crazy-busy Saturday and not much more fence-work was completed.  Pig-farmer left Saturday night.  Monday, I was back on it; flying solo.

Hedge posts make great, strong, sturdy fence-posts.  They are not, however, light-weight.  I cursed the hedge posts today.  I started out loading piles onto the truck (after morning chores, burning off a pile of used animal bedding and spraying 2 gallons of Round-Up).

Truck O’ Work

Those aren’t hedge posts in the above pictures and they weren’t nearly as heavy.  The pic does show the rolls of fencing and barbed wire, though.  If you could zoom in uber-close, you can probably find some of my skin on the barbed-wire …

I loaded a few hedge posts into the bed of the truck, but soon it got too high for me to throw them up there.  Since hedge posts are not smooth (they have the knots and gnarls of cantankerousness) they don’t slide, either.  I finally experimented with rolling a few onto a log chain, wrapping the chain around them and pulling them with the 4-wheeler.  I had the most success with this.  Then,  on to pile them neatly … which is when my shins took a beating as they would sometimes roll back against my legs.

Pile of pain

That huge, square post is not hedge.  I think maybe a railroad tie?  It also caused some back-distress.  After my back said I had enough, I transitioned to mowing!

Evening chores – involve my moving Happy (donkey) and Abigail (heifer) back into their respective lots.  I usually rotate them morning and evening.  They have limited space, due the pasture being out of commission and they (seem to) like the change, plus they clean up what the other one doesn’t eat, sometimes.  Well, when Happy decides to act like an ass (literally), he will chase Abigail.  It’s somewhat of a game.  A game I hope they tire of playing when they are in the larger pasture, together.  Abigail has now, twice, chosen to plow through a gate when Happy chases her.  Which is exactly what happened last night.  Off they both trotted into the larger pasture; which, keep in mind, now has NO FENCE around it.  It does absolutely no use to run after animals when they do something like this.  As I was  pondering my plan, Levi (oldest) and Molly (girlfriend) came out of the house.  Levi had just arrived home from work a few minutes earlier.  They had watched the show from the family room window.

We decided that Levi would get on the 4-wheeler and circle the critters, while Molly and I stood in gaps.  The unspoken concern was … what if they head into the cornfields??  It took a few rounds of 4-wheeling rodeo, but finally, both escapees were back into their respective pens.  The goats were also out because I let them out in the morning and evenings while I do chores.  They like to play and graze while following me around.  The goats took the whole show in and stayed (mostly) out of the way.  I hope they weren’t taking notes on Things-to-Try.

After repairs & chores, Tylenol & Aleve, I was ready for a beer.  Instead, we grabbed pizza in town to take to the boys’ Grandma and Grandpa Pruemer’s.  It was, after all, a good evening.  

This morning, my muscles have more-or-less recuperated … and today’s plan is to put up sweet corn with my other set of in-laws.  This, I hope, I can handle easier!