New Pasture

The time has come. We are out of hay and the girls are ready to see the countryside. Before we can turn them into new pasture, though, we've got to fix a little fence. 

So I loaded up Chief with fence fixing equipment: smooth wire, fence stretcher, pliers, clips, and all the staples I could find. 

Before we headed out, we stopped to see our Blessed Mother. 

It's been so fun to spend some time on this south 40. There's not a lot of feed back here, and the cheatgrass is thick, but hopefully the cows will enjoy the cool rock formations as much as I do. 

Up high there is a raven's nest with baby birds in it.

The back fence is pretty rough. An unfortunate quick remedy to a sagging fence is a twist of the wire with pliers. This works well for the first year. Then it rusts out and breaks at the twist, requiring patching. Please tighten loose wires right or just leave them alone. The next guy to run the line with thank you. 

Missing staples on old fence posts are a common problem and an easy fix. If you look hard enough, you can often find a lost staple or two laying around the post. It's good to save what little supply you have. Seems like you never have enough staples on hand while fixing fence. 

Tons of river rock on these hills. Guess the Big Horn River used to be a little wider and deeper than it is today. 

More Indian Paintbrush. It likes south facing slopes, where it gets a lot of sun. 

Beautiful view of the Big Horn Mountains up here. Fun to see the contrast this time of year with the green valley and snow capped mountains. 

Once the fence was fixed and any gates secure, we turned the girls out and let them run. They’ll come back here for water. 

They didn't go far before they put their heads down and picked green. 

They've got about 100 acres of Big Horn Basin prairie to play with. I envision leaving them out here for about a month. It'll be good for this ground to get grazed, it's been a few years since it has. Cattle are meant to roam. Feeding them until grass is ready is fine. But traveling around, turning up the soil, and nibbling on plants, is good for them and the land. It'll be fun to keep an eye on them. Dad will probably do so mainly with the drone. It'll also be a good excuse to keep bringing a horse home to check on them. We may be small in size but not in fun. These handful of critters should keep all of us on our toes for years to come. Let's ranch.