Wow, what a weekend we had. It was time to start fencing in the 6 acres behind our house for summer pastures. We decided about 4 of them would do for this year, with temporary fencing separating the part to be done in the future. We rented an auger from Tiger Rental - that place has been a life saver for the weekend. The Grove family agreed to come help with fencing on Saturday so we all begun with digging the holes and putting in t-posts between wooden, putting wooden braces for all the corners, etc. When the Grove family came they also offered to butcher a sheep for us as well, so that was the first thing they did. Levi cornered the sheep while I got the halter on and Carl shot it between the eyes, giving it a very quick death. Liv got the tractor and wagon and we hauled her to the garage where Levi gutted her, then they hung her to skin her and cut her up. Liv, CJ, Hannah and Hunter worked on the hide and got it prepared for me to send in to get done into a nice lambskin rug.
After the lamb was cut up Lyn sharpened all our knives and we began work on cleaning up the pieces, setting aside two large bags of fat to render for soap and candles. We cut up all the other pieces such as chops, flanks, legs, etc. and chopped up the rest for burger. All was vaccuumed sealed and frozen. It took until 8:00 at night to do all that, with only a few bloody mishaps on our fingers because the knives were so sharp.
Back to the fence, the men quickly got hole after hole dug until they got down near the spring and pumphouse and hit the water main! After plugging it up they had to make a trip to Lowes to get pipe to patch and because of Carl's expertise had it all back together in an hour or two! Time for dinner with everyone at 8:30 that night.
Day two of incredible weekend: We began early, getting the rest of the holes dug. Liv and I helped David and were able to get many done easily - no rocks hit and had to be dug out like Levi did the day before. Joel joined and finished the holes just in time for the bees to swarm out of the large hive we have so David had to tend to that - getting them into a new hive box.
The Grove family showed up again for another day of work unbelievably! They helped get all the wooden posts in the holes, putting rocks in the bottom of some with wetness. That was a big, big job. In the meantime, we continued with the t-posts and almost finished - just had one more side to go.
After cutting some oak branches needed for the shitake mushroom plugs (1,000 of them to put in) and putting them in 3-4 foot pieces on pallets in the barn, it was time for dinner!
What a weekend!
New Rose Bush
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