30 acres. We have 30 acres – about 15 has been fenced well enough for the weedeaters and grass mowers for a while. As the summer has drawn on, they are doing a great job keeping my lawn short – but we don’t want to sell skinny cows, so we need to be sure they have plenty of grass. Since Jennifer and Jeremy and the grands have been staying in the “fix house” in Cross Lanes, we decided that we would let the grounds keeping herd keep the 2 acres next door trimmed up as well. Plenty of grass for the cows, It was already easy to get water fixed for them. Win – Win.
All that fence we ran in the last post enclosed the front half of the property and got us started on the back half. So Jim and I worked the other day to finish closing it all in. 17 acres. Out of 17 acres there was about 125 feet that needed to be finished up. Not that there wasn’t some fence, it just wasn’t the field fence. There were four strands of barbed wire. Somehow out of all those acres, the cows wandered away from lush, green, tall grass and decided that the weedy field of the neighbors would taste so much better! So before we could fence, we had to go fetch a cow. Ugh! Done! Then, we fenced among the odiferous piles of fertilizer and closed up 75 feet of fence.
Now, for lunch! Quick run, smelling oh so wonderful and looking that much better (HA!)- we drove through Arby’s in Ripley. Just a few minutes down the road. NO ONE wanted us to go in anywhere – whew!
In that few minutes, the goats which had been happily eating at the farthest top of the farm decided that they needed to investigate this wonderful, weedy, dense field on the other side of the remaining 50 ft. section of barbed wire fence! So, we returned from our mini lunch escape to find our wandering herd deep in the thicket of the neighbor’s field! We decided to fake out 30 some goats and make them believe we were feeding them., because they may not care about all those thorns, but I DO! So, with a certain amount of effort, we managed to gate all 43 animals OUT OF OUR WAY! And FINALLY sealed up the back acre and ran them a fresh trough full of water.
Thankful that none of the animals wondered too far and that we saw them quickly and were able to get them back “home” without losing them. We are still far better at baiting with some food than we are at herding, but we are getting better.
Good news – 17 acres now enclosed in goat fence with plenty of food for cows and goats
Three years after purchasing this place, I am working hard to make it my home. I made some progress in that direction this week, but I have a long way to go. STILL have a garage full of boxes!
getting the family china set in place 
. . . AND we have a lot more work to do!
brandnewfarmers 