So what’s new here on the Hunker Down—well Friday afternoon I got a call from my neighbor; did I know that my goats were on her side of the fence.  Didn’t know before she called, but I did then.  So I stopped what I was doing, and went over and got my goats back where they were supposed to be.  Then’ since that articular fence line (west side) was new and as good a goat fence one can build (no—it won’t hold water),  I walked it from end to end looking for where the little Houdini’s had escaped.  First time in a good while since they had, and we did some pretty good patch work then.  Well, nothing on the west side, and nothing that looked like it had been crossed on the north, but, I did find a dead fall on the east side fence, and it was obvious that there had been some traffic over the fence there.

Saturday morning, I got out there, working on clearing the line on both sides of the dead fall, and was busily prepping things for some patch work when the goats started browsing towards where I was working.  Needless to say, they wanted to make an exit—even though nothing on the other side was any different from mine.  So, I’m trying to drift them in another direction when about 8 of my goats came running up the ATV road on the other side of the fence and proceeded to run up and across on the dead fall.  Indicated to me that there was another crossing somewhere on that east side—oh boy, just what I needed. 

Anyway, I got the herd drifted back towards the center of the property, and then called them into the pen where I knew they would stay put,  got the chainsaw after the dead fall and finished clearing what needed fixing,  We have a heavy growth of “Cats Claw” vine, and it is a devil to cut out.

Sunday morning, I take a half dozen 1” pipe posts up there and while I was proceeding to drive them in I hear a god awful bellowing, and look across the ATV road at a pretty good sized Black Angus bull who apparently didn’t appreciate all the noise I was making.  He was snorting and stomping and scraping—all the things an angry bull does in preparation for a charge, but I just talked to him –told him I was sorry but needed to get those posts into the ground, and he decided that he would just as soon stay on his side of the line.  He wandered out of sight, but kept at the bellowing for quite a while.  I spent pretty much the entire day patching about 40 foot of real weak fence line.  Actually the entire east side fence is rather weak and at least 50 years old.  New fence is on my list of things to do when time and money are available at the same time.

Fell into bed exhausted after finishing up all the regular evening chores, and the new little pup my friend gifted me a couple of weeks back decided that last night would be as good a time as any to prove she really was pregnant, and started having pups.  She was in the little “pet bed” my friend had bought for her, and I decided that was OK by me.  I was reminded this morning that it would get pretty “yucky” pretty quick, but I had other things on my mind—Like about 100 feet of that east side fence that was no longer fence at all.  Over the years the cat’s claw had so overwhelmed it that the posts and wire was flat on the ground.  Appears to me that I’ll be rather busy for the next few days not doing the jobs I need to finish like planting the fall garden and getting some chickens in the coop.  Oh well, keeping the goats to home is probably an important priority.

Looking forward to a little break tomorrow—need to drive to Temple for a VA appointment.  Only about 130 miles each way.

JVC