October
24th - One morning we got up to find Mumma Deer, two baby deer, and
Auntie Deer eating the grape vines on the orchard fence next to the car
out in the front of the house.
They scuttled off when they discovered they'd been spotted. Have to see
what they do when we add extra fencing around the paddocks. It'll
certainly ruin their fun.
pft'ssunrise.
2nd
November - Above the fog!!
If you ever see properties in the foothills advertised in Sacramento, they are always careful to put "Above the fog". This is based on the concept that the Central Valley is socked in fog for the entire winter. It doesn't quite happen that way, but being "above the fog" is a definite plus.
These
photos were taken a few miles down the road from us, driving on the way to work
through the South Fork American River canyon. (This is what we would
have been looking down at if we'd stayed at Terra View.)
This is where you'd go rafting if you came to visit us in the summer. Except it wouldn't be so foggy.
When
you get down to the river, some morning's it's steaming.
Two
possible commute vehicles.
4th-5th
November Weekend - pft and I have been fencing for two weekend's
now. We hoped to get it done by Sunday, so that we could bring the
horses up from the Valley, but despite valiant efforts (it gets dark too
early), we still aren't quite done.
This lil' shed is, in fact, a chicken coop. When I get around to sanitizing it, we might use it for hay storage. The pine tree in front of the coop is the one we used to pull the first length of no-climb fence.
First
we had to bang in all the fence posts, and dig the gate post hole. Of
course, the place the gate post had to go was filled with rocks, so it
took us some time to get that done. See the nice green gate.
Once everything was in, we pulled and attached the fence wire. Blimin' stuff, it's so heavy that I can barely lift a roll of it.
Same
idea, looking back up the hill, so's you can see the house. Behind the
chicken coop is the chicken run. This will be removed when we get to it
and in its place we will erect a palatial pony shelter. Maybe. Or
they'll get to stand under the trees.
Each of the green t-posts has a lil' black hat on it, to stop the horses impaling themselves on the post. This doubles as an electric tape holder. There will be another line of electric tape at knee level - you can see the white electric-tape- holders-on-stalks sticking out.
The
length of fence. The thing in front of the chicken coop from this angle is
a rather small giant redwood tree planted by the previous owners. It's not
in an ideal place (hence the white posts around it, to dissuade ponies
from eating it/standing on it), but should be nice when it gets bigger. In
the foreground, on the left, are the
nail-on-electric-tape-holders-on-stalks that I spent much time banging in.
Very satisfying it was too.
Of
course, once we'd decided what to do, we changed our minds. This gate hole
was a last minute design concept done late at night with the aid of flood
lights. In the cold light of day, it showed up a few flaws - namely that
the silver gate you see propped up against the post in the background has
tiny hinges such that a large dog could pop it off if it were so inclined.
The idea is nice, but the logistics of it need work... and we'll probably
have to buy another gate to put in the hole. As far as ambience goes, this
gate is excellent. We'll figure it out.
This photo shows the second part of the 100' run of no-climb that we pulled on Sunday. Persuading no-climb to wiggle up uneven hills is not easy.
Sacrificial
ponderosa pine. It had the choice of being chopped down completely, or
offering its services as a electric-tape-insulator- on-stalk holder.
It chose the latter. I had a lot of fun going along the fenceline and
figuring out what I needed to chop down and what could stay. I tend to be
too nice, so now we have a lot of lopsided, bald-on-one side trees and
bushes along the fence. I'm optimistically hoping it'll work out. But give
me one winter of the fence shorting out on wet, flapping branches, and
I'll be out there with the chainsaw.
This
is the north end of the paddock. I re-evaluated where the fenceline should
go and managed to segregate all but two of the orchard trees (in this pic,
the orchard is to the right) while still giving the horses the maximum
amount of space. The two big trees in the middle are live oak (or some
similar type of evergreen oak) and make a nice shelter. There's a strong
likelihood, however, that unless we wrap the trunks with chicken wire,
bored pony teeth will munch upon the bark and kill the trees. Another
little job for later.
The
persimmon tree and its view. No, I don't know what a persimmon is either,
but these are them, apparently. No idea how you tell if they are ripe or
not, considering I don't know what they are supposed to look like.
pft
and I proudly brought home our first ever bales of hay on Saturday. This
here is blue grass/fescue mix and jolly nice looking it is too. It cost
$10.49 a bale and is very heavy - hence we backed the truck up to our
personal "loading dock" and pulled them off the back. Ideas of
storing the hay in the chicken coop did pale in comparison to the ease of
handling hay this way, so we'll see how it works out. It's *just* across
the driveway from where the hungry horses' mouths will be, so very handy.
In the background, behind the hay, is my stash of barbed wire - put in the least likely place that horses will stand on it (famous last words). I keep finding odd bits of wire around the place and obsessively removing them and chopping them up into small, manageable pieces. This takes forever, but since Mouse and my Great Wire Adventure one dark night a couple of years ago (possibly the most frightening thing I've ever had happen to me), I've been particularly paranoid about wire. Not a bad habit to have, I suppose.
This
one's for Mar. I was worried that it might rain on my lovely hay and all
our spare tarps are still down at the Sacramento house, so I returned to
the trusty stand-in - the shower curtain. This fine example is our
"dancing/leaping frog" shower curtain (look carefully and you'll
see them) and works very well to cover the hay temporarily until more
professional hay coverings are available. There is a metal rack under it,
to keep it from sitting up against the hay and trapping condensation.
Sammy
sitting on the front window sill, inspecting the world. In a few days,
when you look out of this window, you'll see horses right in front of you.
Yay!!
