This Is the Barnyard That Herb Built

This is the barnyard from the corner nearest the house.  You can see what a good job Herb did of bracing the corners using both cross pieces and diagonal wires.  You may also be able to see that the barnyard extends from each side of the barn straight out to the drive.  (The orange cord on the ground (right) is an extension cord running from an outlet in the barn to the chickens' heat lamp.)
This is the double gate into the barnyard that Herb built.  It's 22' wide (one 10' gate and one 12' gate) to allow plenty of room to maneuver the tractor or the horse trailer in and out.  See the last picture for another reason. 

The left hand (first) bay of the barn holds two horse stalls, Angel's being the one you can see with Brandy's behind it.  It's very hard to distinguish in this photo, but there is a 4' gate right against the barn by Angel's stall which opens into the round pen.

The second bay is open to allow access to the stalls; this is where I bedded down straw for Sara and Siobhan and where they often choose to rest.  A water tank is located at the front near the pillar holding up the porch.

In the third bay, you can just see a corral panel toward the back.  It is part of our feed enclosure.  For now, the feed area is simply a square of corral panels with a gate to get in.  It has enough room to store all the metal garbage cans of different feed, a pallet with a hay bale on it, a wheelbarrow for manure removal, and room to work.

The fourth bay is available for the animals to move around in.  Centered in the middle of these two taller bays (three and four) is our new ceiling fan which is not in use now, but which will help alot in the summer. 

The fifth bay is also open to the animals.  Currently there is a stack of concrete blocks there waiting to be used for the milking parlor floor. 

The sixth bay holds the tack room in the back half, while the front half is open until we build the milking parlor.   

This is the view of the barnyard from the corner closest to Kara's house, where the round pen is.  It's still difficult to distinguish the gate near Angel's stall, but you can see the tall, blue gate to the exterior.  This way I can take a horse into the round pen, work it, then ride out without the risk that animals in the barnyard will escape.  When I brought the horses up to groom them yesterday, I was able to keep them completely separated from Sara and Siobhan--although Brandy tried to climb the gate in her attempt to see the calf!  I was glad for the gate--I prefer Brandy without horn holes!

This is a wide angle shot of the whole barnyard, including most of the round pen and all but the extreme right-hand corner of the barnyard.  You can see a few extra corral panels on the ground in the grass; we'll probably use them to divide the interior of the barn into pens so we can separate animals as desired--Sara from Siobhan, cows from horses, etc.  Since each bay of the barn is 10' wide and 24' long, this can be done easily with a combination of 10' and 12' panels.

I promised to explain another reason for the extra wide gate.  Taking this picture, I was standing in a field behind our house which we call the "Hill Pasture." It's flat near the barn and falls away in a hill down to the driveway along the Lower Pasture.  All that separates the Hill Pasture from the barnyard is the road between our house and Kara's.  Our next project is to fence the Hill Pasture and give it a wide gate directly across from the barnyard gate.  The two fences will have a 20' clearance between them, and when all four gates are opened, they will join together to act as a chute for animals to get from pasture to barnyard. 

One more piece of our puzzle will be the bottom gate of the Hill Pasture which we will put across the road from the existing gate of the Lower Pasture.  This picture shows the Lower Pasture (with the run-in shed at right) and how it is situated in relation to the Hill Pasture which you can see at left leading up to the white barn.  The brown barn and barnyard are just off the left edge of the photo.  Kara's entrance road follows the white fence line and turns up the hill where you see the green cedars.  The gate to the Lower Pasture is in middle of the white fence line near the large tree.  When we put a gate in the Hill Pasture across the road, it will allow us to open both gates wide and use them as a chute to let animals pass between the fields.  Just about where I'm standing to take this last picture is where the second gate for the Lower Pasture can connect to the gate to the Back Pasture.  That is the last piece of the puzzle that will allow us to move animals freely across our property without them ever escaping--not necessary for our well-trained horses, but very nice for cattle that aren't halter-trained!