For the past few weeks I have been receiving phone calls from my dad every day or two telling me about my cow that was out! It seems that the old (really old!) woven wire fence on the North side of the pasture wasn't going to cut it anymore because even our little cow could JUMP over the fence and get out. Yesterday we went down to the farm to put up our electric fence in hopes of curtailing "Cowdini" and to open up some more pasture for them. Along with the electric fence (we used the new solar fencer you can read about below), I also added a few more cattle panels around a couple trees in the old fence line to give some more shade for the cattle (when I say cattle I really me the heifer and the bull calf). It was almost a perfect day to be out and working ... well perfect for August in Iowa I guess!
Earlier in the day we attended a local estate auction. They had a little over two hay racks of house hold junk ... errr ... treasures and then some old equipment. Since it was such a nice day we didn't mind standing around and watching everyone bid on the junk ... err ... treasures while we were waiting for the equipment to sell. There wasn't much for equipment, but a couple of things caught our eye. We ended up getting a like new 100 gallon water tank, a five bottom MM plow (really that's for the uncle), a flare box wagon (will be good for going to get carbon material), a head gate, and a homemade wagon gear with a pile of junk and tin on top. Everything was going pretty well until they got to the tin. I was interested in the tin for building more chicken pens and for building a moveable shade pen. They started the bidding on the tin and didn't get a bidder (we wait until it hits 50¢ before bidding), when all of the sudden they decided to throw the wagon gear in also. Well, it wasn't all bad, because we got the whole shootin' match for $8.00. Now, I can mess around with that wagon gear and see if I can make a water cart, feed cart, or maybe just a utility wagon for hauling things around the farm.It was a great day to be out at the farm and it was nice to get a few things done. I'll be posting pictures in the next few days of how the cattle are coming along. I think they are starting to look better.
